Starting next year, house-call provider Heal will be serving members of a health plan operating in Northern California as a joint venture between Sutter Health and Aetna.
The deal brings to 90 million the number of Americans with access to Heal. The company, which began seeing its first patients in 2015, employs 120 doctors and nurses nationwide.
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The joint health plan, Sutter Health | Aetna, was founded in 2017 and covers 15 counties in Northern California. It combines the provider resources of Sutter Health and the payer expertise of health insurer Aetna. The deal with Heal stems from the plan’s desire to make care more accessible to its members, Sutter Health | Aetna CEO Steve Wigginton wrote in an email response to questions forwarded by a spokesperson.
“House calls can be a more convenient option for members, bringing the doctor to their door instead of having to make the time to go to a doctor’s office,” he wrote. The cost to members will depend on a member’s plan but be similar to the cost of visiting a doctor’s office.
Heal will employ the doctors, Wigginton wrote. But they will have access to the Sutter Health | Aetna network, allowing them to write prescriptions, order labs, and make in-network referrals for specialists and other services, such as behavioral health and disease management.
“This collaboration helps coordinate care and improve provider communications, safety and quality,” Wigginton wrote.
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Heal is one of several providers reestablishing the practice of physician house calls. Based in Santa Monica, California, the company has been growing through deals with insurers and through the $15 million acquisition earlier this year of Doctors on Call, a house-call service in New York City.
The company is on track to make 100,000 house calls in 2019 and projects making 250,000 in 2020, Heal co-founder and CEO Nick Desai wrote in an email response to questions forwarded by a spokesperson. The company is an in-network provider for all major health plans in New York and California. It is also available in the Atlanta and Washington, D.C. areas.
Patients with Sutter Health | Aetna can schedule appointments seven days a week between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. through the Heal app, the internet or a phone call. Depending on the patient’s location, doctors may be available in as little as two hours.
In an interview this fall, Desai said Heal had been planning a Series C investment round in the fourth quarter of 2019. Desai declined to comment on those plans in his emailed response.
To date, the company has raised nearly $70 million. Its investors include Fidelity ContraFund, Thomas Tull, Jim Breyer, the Ellison Family, Lionel Richie, and others.
Photo: Heal