Livio Health Group, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based startup provider of mobile urgent and primary care services, announced this week that it has received an undisclosed investment from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota that will help increase its presence and patients’ access to its diagnosis, treatment, referral and medication prescription and dispensing services.
“We know more frequent, lighter, routine medical care reduces complications and long-term costs, which is why we’re making access easier—by setting up on-site clinics in non-traditional settings to serve multiple patients—so they have a better quality of life,” Livio Health founder and CEO Mike Nathan said in a news release.
The move advances two growing trends: Minnesota’s “big health” players investing in startups and nontraditional providers offering the perhaps the most traditional of healthcare services that has been abandoned by mainstream providers: the house call.
Earlier this year, RetraceHealth, a Minneapolis-based home- and video-visit provider, received $1 million from the St. Paul-based HealthEast Care System, BCBS of Minnesota and the venture capital arm of McKesson.
The Minnesota Blues plan also led a $1 million fundraising effort for Learn to Live, an online behavioral therapy company.
“The self-directed nature of Learn to Live’s technology platform offers a new approach for helping people address depression, social anxiety and like conditions,” John Uribe, vice president of business development at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, said in a news release. “Blue Cross is committed to investing in emerging business models that expand choice while advancing shared health goals.”
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Fortune magazine wrote about this trend in 2014 and explained that, because of the Affordable Care Act’s new rules on medical loss ratios, insurance companies were investing money that was previously distributed to shareholders.
Startups offering house calls have been beneficiaries of this trend. In addition to Livio Health, which was launched last year, Dallas-based PediaQ recently raised $4.5 million from Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and UnitedHealthCare. In Austin, Texas, technology-facilitated house calls are being offered by the startups WhiteGlove Health and Remedy Urgent Care, according to CommunityImpact.com.
In Chicago, a startup called Orunje offers $99 home visits from nurse practitioners and $169 for a visit by a doctor.
Representatives from BCBS Minnesota and Livio Health could not be reached for comment, but their news release mentioned how Livio expects to grow with “a number of new contracts” taking effect this year. According to its website, Livio Health also offers to partner with organizations to host onsite services at no cost to the organization or facility. It also promises to handle all the billing and notes that it accepts Medicare and Medicaid.
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