Fay Rotenberg is CEO of Firefly Health, which is an advanced virtual primary care group (a bastardized phrase she hates). That means they are both providing virtual care, with an integrated care and health plan coverage model, and are also a risk-bearing medical group working with other payers. They adjust the model using health guides, MDs, NPs, etc. and they help their patients manage their in person experience with specialists, labs, imaging, etc. — they have 1900+ partners nationwide who will actually know the patient is coming, and is integrated into Firefly’s model. Clinical outcomes are great, and costs are 12-15% lower, yet they have 5,000 members per MD. Maybe it really is the 21st century Kaiser?
Firefly Health’s CEO & Exec Chairman on $40M Raise & Becoming a “Bloat-less Kaiser”
By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH
Virtual-first primary care company Firefly Health is becoming a health plan! Backed by a $40M Series B, CEO Fay Rotenberg and Executive Chairman Jonathan Bush stop by to explain how they’re providing “half-price healthcare that’s twice as good.” (Or, as only Jonathan can put it: “we’re a bloat-less Kaiser.”) All kidding aside, some big-name health innovation investors are not only behind this raise (Andreessen Horowitz led, F-Prime Capital and Oak HC/FT dipped back in), but also this idea to wrap a benefit around Firefly’s digitally-driven comprehensive care model. Already in-market, the new benefit-plus-care product is aimed squarely at mid-sized/small, fully-insured employers – shops with 50-500 employees which, right now, have limited options for dramatically changing their healthcare spend or being able to build out their own benefits the same way large self-insured employers can.
Fay and Jonathan get into the details about how they’re extending their “Marie Kondo-ing” of healthcare delivery – which has thus far netted some pretty impressive health outcomes, cost savings, and a 92 Net Promoter Score – into healthcare financing.
BONUS: Tune in around 25:30 and stick around for a few minutes as Jonathan weighs in on the health tech funding boom, how it compares to the EMR arms race days of ole, and whether or not he thinks he can beat Glen Tullman’s $14.5B valuation if/when Firefly goes public. HA!
