To be successful in value-based care arrangements, providers must invest heavily in technology and partnerships. However, most federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) — safety-net providers approved by the government to provide low-cost care — simply don’t have the scale nor capacity to thrive in these care models.
Yuvo Health — a New York City-based startup founded to address this problem — closed a $20.2 million Series A funding round on Wednesday.
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The round, which brings the company’s total funding to $27.5 million, was led by Mastry Ventures. Other investors included AlleyCorp, HLM Venture Partners, AV8 Ventures, New York Ventures, Route 66 Ventures, VamosVentures and Social Innovation Fund.
Yuvo was founded in 2021 to provide FQHCs with the administrative and managed contract services they need in order to prosper in the value-based care environment.
“Clearly, today’s U.S. healthcare system is broken, as represented by the deep health equity and access problems, with low-income communities having so few avenues to seek primary care. If not for FQHCs, many communities would have zero access to primary care. But unfortunately, FQHCs struggle to get paid equitably for the support they provide, making it even more difficult for them to serve the individuals who require healthcare access,” Yuvo CEO Cesar Herrera said in an interview.
To enable value-based care, Yuvo acts as a risk-bearing entity for FQHCs. Unlike most other providers across the country, these community health centers are regulatorily prohibited from taking on downside risk, Herrera pointed out — this severely limits their ability to meaningfully participate in value-based care models.
Yuvo solves this issue by contracting directly with payers — Medicaid, Medicare and commercial health plans — for various risk arrangements. The startup then partners with FQHCs, wherein these health centers delegate the risk of their attributed patients to Yuvo.
The company differs from other value-based care enablement startups, like Aledade and Agilon Health, because it is specifically tailored for FQHCs and their unique needs, Herrera said. Unlike other companies, Yuvo “takes its model a significant step forward” by actually bearing the full downside risk for its partners, he argued.
“Most other providers are still required to bear some amount of downside risk. Since FQHCs are prohibited from doing so, we are also not allowed to pass that on to our FQHC partners,” Herrera explained.
To ensure it is successfully managing the risk of its FQHC partners’ patients, Yuvo deploys its “value-based care ecosystem,” he said. This involves technology — such as data aggregation, analytics and point-of-care tools — and services — like care management, risk adjustment and quality interventions.
“This ecosystem is payer-agnostic, so our FQHC partners will be able to leverage this support for all their patients. Also, there is no cost to our FQHC partners for participating in these arrangements. By opening up this additional revenue stream, we not only fuel our own growth, but establish financial growth and stability for our FQHC partners as well,” Herrera declared.
The startup has been operating solely in New York, but it is using its Series A funds to scale its reach to Ohio. It recently began partnerships with Neighborhood Family Practice and My Community Health Center, two FQHCs in Ohio. Some of Yuvo’s New York-based health center partners include Long Island Select Healthcare, Callen Lorde, Boriken Neighborhood Health Center and Joseph P. Addabbo Family Health Center.
The company is still waiting on final data from its 2022 pilot value-based care arrangement in New York, but Herrera highlighted that Yuvo was able to secure value-based care arrangements with six health plans across Medicaid and Medicare for its FQHC partners.
“Unfortunately, none of our FQHC partners would have been able to qualify on their own otherwise,” he said.
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