Clinify Health

Clinify Health is a Chicago-based digital health company that works with healthcare organizations serving patients in underserved communities, with a focus on Medicaid and Medicare populations treated by small independent practices and community health centers. Its cloud-based platform combines individual patient clinical quality data with geographic and demographic data on income, housing, food insecurity and other social determinants of health, producing patient-level recommendations that let providers triage, prioritize the sickest patients, deliver preventative care and reduce overall cost of care.

The platform is positioned to help practices that operate on thin margins and lack the staffing or technology to manage complex patient panels transition to value-based reimbursement arrangements. Reported use cases include surfacing non-clinical barriers such as lack of transportation so that providers can dispatch community health workers, supporting preventative screening campaigns (one clinic increased breast cancer screenings by double digits among primarily Black low-income women), and enabling community health workers to conduct outreach so physicians can focus on the highest-need patients. Providers in the network are reported to see fewer patient no-shows and fewer emergency department readmissions.

Founding story

Founder and CEO Nathan Pelzer worked in investment banking and then as senior director of corporate strategy at VillageMD, where he observed that Medicaid patients in underserved communities have the most complex medical needs yet receive the lowest spending per patient. Drawing on that experience and on his own family's deferral of medical care, he began Clinify Health as an idea pitched in person to South Side Chicago hospitals. The company got its start in the Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program run by the University of Chicago Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, using National Science Foundation funding to validate the thesis and gather market feedback, then ran a pilot with a West Side Chicago safety-net hospital that showed measurable improvement in patient health metrics. Pelzer, a 2015 Chicago Booth graduate, was introduced to his first technology advisor and first angel investor through the Polsky network.

Business model

Clinify Health sells a technology and services offering to provider organizations — community health centers and independent physician practices — that helps them maximize financial performance under value-based contracts. The stated value proposition is a low-cost way for practices to augment existing clinical data and operations; providers capture more of the value they create under alternative payment arrangements and increase revenues that can be reinvested in care.

Revenue is tied to serving provider organizations operating under value-based and alternative payment arrangements, helping clinics save money and improve financial performance under those contracts.

Traction

Reported a network of more than 100 physicians and more than 100,000 patients, with roughly 85,000 patients in the Chicago area. A later profile reported the company supporting five health center organizations across 35 sites in their transition to value-based care. Reported outcomes include double-digit increases in breast cancer screening at one clinic and reductions in patient no-shows and emergency department readmissions.

Latest developments

Following the seed round, the company said it was in discussions with Medicaid managed care organizations in additional states, hiring for clinic-support and technology roles in the Chicago area, and expanding its product offerings. Its investor the California Health Care Foundation stated it hopes Clinify Health will extend its services to providers and payers serving Medi-Cal patients in California.