Portfolio Companies

Lemhi Ventures has made capital investments in a variety of companies working across the health care services industry. Our current portfolio companies include:

ABILITY Network, Inc. (formerly VisionShare)

ABILITY Network reflects a new name and a substantial expansion of the business developed by VisionShare. “For years, VisionShare has been meeting providers where they are, working to earn their trust every day, to enable their most critical healthcare communications with each other. As ABILITY, we will continue to connect thousands of hospitals with physicians, skilled nursing facilities with clinics, and tens of thousands of other providers across the country with each other and with the nation’s largest payer, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,” says Mark Briggs, CEO of ABILITY Network Inc. “Our technological capabilities and the scale of our national network allow us to develop innovative new services that give providers the ABILITY to directly transform patient care and produce better outcomes.”

Briggs and his team are building on a solid foundation. With a series of investments from private backers, VisionShare had established secure, internet-based information exchange solutions that made the company the preferred vendor for health care providers, CMS, and a number of other players. When VisionShare began its conversations with the Lemhi team in 2006, the sea change in the infrastructure of Medicare claims processing was in its early stages. The initial Lemhi investment of $5 million allowed VisionShare to meet a surge in interest and demand. With funding in place, the company added programming, marketing, and sales staff to take advantage of a rapidly growing market.

“The Lemhi team still challenges us to expand our service offerings and reach into new markets. We share a belief that healthcare needs to become more efficient, more affordable, more convenient and, ultimately, more accessible for everyone,” says Briggs. With providers under increasing clinical, financial, and governmental pressure to have better visibility into their patient populations, ABILITY’s clients need to be more connected in order to enable better care. “With follow-on investments of nearly $4 million, Lemhi continues to support our drive to improve and expand the tools our customers have come to know and trust,” says Briggs. “They are much more partners than investors.”

DestinationRx

When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) looked for a partner to help beneficiaries learn about and compare the new Medicare Part D benefit plans, DestinationRx (DRx) was the hands-down choice. “Two of every three Medicare beneficiaries used our tools to find, compare and enroll in a Part D plan,” says company CEO, Michael Cho. “Our platform gives consumers the tools they need to find the best plan based on their personal health care needs and preferences.”

DestinationRx is out to change consumers’ perception that health care is something that happens to them. The company enables consumers to take greater control over their health care by providing independent, transparent and actionable information and purchasing tools. As consumers become more engaged in selecting their own therapies, they are more likely to follow through on prescribed treatments and achieve the therapeutic outcomes they and their physicians intend.

Like many of Lemhi’s portfolio partners, DestinationRx is pioneering new territory. “Half of the services we provide did not exist until we created a market and found partners to develop them,” says Cho. “Lemhi’s investment of $10 million will help accelerate our growth as we move into new services and markets. More important than the financing, however, is how we will work together. The Lemhi team is made up of like-minded lunatics, which is to say they are entrepreneurs at heart. They’ve been at the forefront of transparency and consumer empowerment in health care and are an excellent partner for DRx.”

OneRecovery, Inc.

Behavioral health initiatives rarely receive headlines, yet addiction affects approximately 26 million people in the U.S., with insurers spending more than $2 billion dollars a year on treatment and related healthcare costs. In spite of the spending, approximately 85% of people in recovery fail. “It’s hard enough to get people into treatment, and harder to move the needle on failure, but we believe we can help people succeed over the long term,” says David Metzler, OneRecovery founder and CEO. “That’s where we’ll see the real gains in health, and the real savings in healthcare spending.”

OneRecovery has developed a novel form of disease, care and case management through an anonymous, secure and clinically-supported social networking platform. This distinctive “social solutioning” approach provides each member with real-time access to conversations, information, and resources when they are most needed. The service is already showing promising results. “The industry standard for initial engagement is well below 45% when covered employees are referred to treatment through Employee Assistance Programs or other referrals,” notes Metzler. “We’ve been tracking engagement results of 80% at two contacts, and 40% of our participants have on-going interaction with the people and resources available through the platform. That’s an enormous difference.” For payers and treatment providers, there is an immediate opportunity to improve administrative efficiency and reduce call center volume as people interact online. Long-term, the sustained benefit will be improved clinical efficacy and reductions in co-morbidity expenses related to addiction. The bottom line, though, is healthier people with sustained and lasting changes in behavior.

OneRecovery is a mission-driven organization. “We’re a bunch of technology people. Many of us have first-hand experience with the challenges of recovering from addiction, so this is much more than just a great business idea,” says Metzler. “One of the things that drew us to Lemhi is that they share our passion for creating real change. From our first conversation, it felt like we were aligned in strategy and values. Once we bring the addiction services to scale, the Lemhi team will be a key partner in helping us expand to other behavioral and medical conditions.”

Recondo Technology

In 2010, Americans spent $2.7 trillion dollars on health care, and the industry spent 17 percent, $460 billion, to process and collect payment. By contrast, the financial services industry spends one percent to process and collect, and the retail credit card industry spends less than two percent.

Recondo Technology develops software that streamlines the hospital revenue cycle, from scheduling through to claim adjudication. Recondo® solutions are built on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, requiring no capital budget and no additional hardware or software installation. Each service employs high-speed, high-volume rules-based processing, giving hospitals unmatched and immediate access to real-time data.

  • SurePayHealth® offers an accurate statement of patient financial responsibility at Point of Service, verifying patient identity, eligibility, and benefits, and accurately calculating the patient fee. After activating SurePayHealth, hospitals increase cash collections by tens of thousands of dollars every month.
  • Eligibility Plus™ gives hospitals the most complete view of patient insurance benefits available in the industry. With a complete understanding of insurance benefits, hospitals immediately identify specific coverage, simplify patient registration workflows, reduce claim rework, and assess patient liability.
  • Authorization-Denial Prevention (Auth-DP™) increases cash flow by reducing a hospital’s costly denials. Auth-DP identifies precertification requirements and authorization at the front of the revenue cycle, increasing authorization coverage and reducing denials by as much as 75 percent.

“Lemhi targets disruptive healthcare technologies,” states Rick Adam, Recondo CEO. “Recondo is the only company streamlining the revenue cycle with a reimbursement rules architecture and advanced integration technologies. We accelerate the adjudication process from weeks and months down to minutes. Our customers reap the benefit in reduced expense and increased cash flow.”

TransEngen

“The challenge of controlling health care spending isn’t a lack of data,” says Greg Morris, TransEngen co-founder, President, and CEO. “It’s the lack of effective tools for transforming transaction data into actionable information.”

TransEngen
 offers an intelligent transaction processing engine providing end-to-end connectivity between payers, providers, and consumers. The TransEngen processing platform drives efficiencies that lower costs, streamline payments, and improve provider collection of patient co-payment and self-payment responsibilities.

With solutions directed at both payers and providers, TransEngen is leading the transformation of health care payment processing. “We are creating valuable new functionality at nearly every transaction stage and delivering real-time payment information at the point of care,” says Morris. “The unique capabilities of our TransEngen platform allow us to design, develop, and execute innovative, custom transaction processing solutions that respond to the shifting needs of a dynamic health care market.”

Exited Companies

DNA Direct

In January 2010, DNA Direct was acquired by Medco Health Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:MHS). The description below reflects Lemhi’s interest in DNA Direct at the time of its initial investment.

“One of the drivers behind DNA Direct is the simple fact that advances in scientific understanding and the technology around genomic medicine have far outpaced the availability of qualified primary care providers to advise individuals,” says CEO Ryan Phelan. “Our comprehensive clinical programs combine proprietary technology with genetic expertise to help our health care partners ensure that the right person gets the right test and interpretation, which ultimately results in improved outcomes and patient care.”

DNA Direct’s medical research team and scientific advisory board track evidence-based, peer-reviewed literature to validate the clinical utility and medical actionability of new genetics tests. With this information, the company has been a pioneer in the delivery of online genetics information to individuals. DNA Direct is building new partnerships with providers and payers to streamline the delivery of genetic information and better integrate genomic medicine into health care through guidance and decision support.

The partnership with Lemhi is more about strategic alignment than pure finance. According to Phelan: “We’re located in San Francisco, where we’re surrounded by VCs. We couldn’t find the right fit. The Lemhi name kept coming up. As we got to know them, we found they have an entrepreneurial energy that matches ours. They understand health care, they understand how powerful the individual is — and will be. In the end, it always comes down to people. Whose advice and judgment will I trust? Who can tell me things I don’t already know? Lemhi fit.”

Liazon

In April 2011, Liazon Corporation secured a $12.6 million round of funding from Bain Capital Ventures, Ingleside Investors, Rand Capital, SBIC, and other investors. In conjunction with this round, Lemhi accepted an offer to repurchase all of its holdings in Liazon. The description below reflects Lemhi’s interest in Liazon at the time of its initial investment.

“Employee benefits are changing. They have to,” says Liazon co-founder and CEO, Tim Godzich. “Out-of-control costs and administrative overload is crushing employers and employees.”

Liazon’s comprehensive, consumer-centric benefits solution transforms the employer role in managing employee health and wealth benefits. Liazon provides a consumer-driven, defined contribution funding strategy for all types of benefits. The tools enable employers to predict and control benefits costs, but relieves them from the responsibility to make benefits decisions for their employees. With Liazon’s solutions, employees are empowered to become true benefits consumers, with access to a transparent benefits marketplace of plans and programs. Liazon’s Bright ChoicesTM consumer portal provides employees with the personalized resources, guidance and support they need to build and manage their own benefits portfolios.

Through Liazon’s tools, individuals can now freely use benefit dollars to create a holistic benefit portfolio that spans health, retirement and income protection, giving employees and employers alike much more value from their benefits spending, while controlling the cost to employers. Liazon handles all benefits administration, including enrollment, eligibility and carrier connectivity, making it easy for employers to administer this new paradigm in employee benefits.

Carol Corporation

In November 2011, Carol was acquired by OptumHealth. The description below reflects Lemhi’s interest in Carol at the time of acquisition.

Value-based care delivery and the required evolution of reimbursement models are at the forefront of any debate on health care reform. Carol works with providers, health plans, and employers to move past the current fee-for-service model to a value-based payment system. Carol offers consulting services, products, and technology solutions to quantify, capture, and report on the actuarial value associated with care delivery and payment processing.

“Improving the value of care and delivering a new value-based reward system are central to reforming the current health care system,” according to Tom Valdivia, MD and President of Carol. “The concept of delivering value-based care is one of the most critical issues facing the system today. Carol and our clients are committed to fundamentally changing the way care is valued and rewarded.”

Carol’s consulting and technology services enable providers to link the outcomes they produce and the payment they receive more directly. In addition, Carol enables payers to recognize value and reward providers differently, by enabling them to process episode-based claims and operate alternative global fee arrangements. The company also has expertise in developing and executing payment reform pilot programs with large, self-funded employers.