Garner Health, a digital platform connecting patients with high-performing providers, announced Thursday that it has raised $100 million in Series E funding.
The company serves employers and has a dataset of over 60 billion medical records that helps identify the best quality doctors. When members choose high-performing providers through Garner’s dataset, their employer then covers most or all of their out-of-pocket costs. This incentivizes employees to choose better doctors and lowers costs for employers by avoiding unnecessary procedures.
This comes at a time when the “cost crisis” for employers is especially acute, according to Nick Reber, Garner Health CEO.
“My sense is that employers are going to need to find a solution. … Employers are going to have to find some way to change the incentives for their members, and it’s no longer going to be really feasible to allow them to treat every provider the same,” he said in an interview.
The Series E round was led by Index Ventures with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint, Thrive, Sequoia, Founders Fund and Kaiser Permanente Ventures. In total, Garner Health has raised about $300 million and has reached a valuation of $2.74 billion.
“The American healthcare system pays doctors to do things to you, not for you. Garner is quietly fixing that,” said Jahanvi Sardana, partner at Index Ventures, in a statement. “By using AI to make physician quality measurable for the first time, they’ve built the market mechanism healthcare always needed – one where employers, hospitals, and patients can finally see who delivers better outcomes, and the system rewards them for it. It’s one of the most important applications of AI in healthcare today.”
With the financing, the company is investing in its AI technology. This includes Garner Research Agent, which reviews the latest medical literature to identify the high-quality and efficient doctors in the country. It’s also investing in its Garner Member Assistant, which helps members handle tasks like booking appointments, understanding benefit details and checking claims.
Garner Health was created out of Reber’s own frustrations with the healthcare system. Reber had back pain, which was misdiagnosed and ultimately led to four surgeries.
“I got to see how healthcare really works from the inside, and I just got really passionate about it, and decided I want to aim my career at trying to solve the problems,” he said. “What I got convinced about as I was digging in is that we all know healthcare is messed up, both in a cost and quality and health outcomes perspective, but what I think is not super well understood is why. My view became that healthcare is messed up [because of a] lack of consumer incentives and consumer information.”
Ultimately, the company aims to help as many people as possible find high-quality and efficient care, while also changing the financial incentives of the industry, Reber added.
Photo: Richard Drury, Getty Images
