A Start-Up Suggests a Fix to the Health Care Morass

Despite the drama in Washington, D.C. over the Affordable Care Act and its repeal or replacement, investors are still seeing a big future in the expansion of healthcare and the creation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in Medicare.

Perhaps the most interesting and groundbreaking company created in connection with the Affordable Care Act is Aledade, founded in 2014 by Dr. Farzad Mostashari, former national coordinator for health information technology at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration.

Aledade, which has raised about $75 million from investors including McKesson Ventures, wants to reduce the cost of health care while improving how patients are treated.

The Aledade software addresses the problems by monitoring a patient’s path through the health care system, collecting patient data from a variety of sources and creating a “helicopter view.” This allows doctors to see which specialists a patient has visited, which tests have been ordered, and how much the overall care might be costing the health care system.

The software uses that data to assemble checklists for physicians’ practices so that they can stay on top of their patients’ routine and non-routine care and reduce its cost.

Aledade now operates in 15 states and has relationships with more than 1,200 doctors. It has many field coordinators who visit practices and offer in-depth training on the software.

Aledade is currently working with Medicare, and it is signing up commercial health insurance companies under similar cost-savings plans.

Read the full story here.