In addition to covering more people than any other insurer in the US, Medicaid also covers half of all births and one-quarter of all behavioral health spending. Improving Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, is one of the best investments we can make in the health of our state.

One of the most efficient ways to achieve this improvement is by helping market-based innovations succeed and scale in the health care safety net. The CHCF Health Innovation Fund invests in emerging technology and service companies that enable payers and providers to expand access, improve quality, and lower costs for patients — in Medicaid and beyond.

New & Noteworthy

RFP

Request for Proposals — Investing in Entrepreneurial Diversity for California’s Safety Net

Investing in Innovation
This request for proposals (RFP) is intended to select a grantee that understands the drivers of limited diversity among emerging health technology entrepreneurs and can recommend activities aligned with CHCF’s mission and resources that will bolster that diversity. Proposals are due 3 PM (PT) on June 5, 2020.
CHCF Blog

Technology’s Emerging Role in the COVID-19 Response

April 15, 2020
Melissa Buckley
Investing in Innovation, Medi-Cal, Telehealth, Workforce
Technology companies supported by the CHCF Health Innovation Fund are working on ways to harness their existing technologies to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.
CHCF Blog

Concert Health Aims to Scale Collaborative Mental Health Care

January 30, 2020
Leslie Walker
Behavioral Health, Investing in Innovation, Telehealth, Workforce
Patients served by small and rural primary care physicians may benefit from a remote version of this increasingly popular model for providing mental health care.
CHCF Blog

Tech Company Unites Unlikely Allies in Bid to Fix Social Safety Net

December 13, 2019
Leslie Walker
Investing in Innovation
More health systems are recognizing the role of social factors in driving poor health outcomes, and a growing number are taking steps to address them.
Investment

Concert Health

Behavioral Health, Telehealth, Investing in Innovation
Concert Health integrates remote behavioral health managers and psychiatrists into primary care practices, making it possible to effectively manage mild-to-moderate mental health conditions without referrals.
Publication

Evaluation of Provider Experiences with eConsults

October 2019
John Snow Inc.
Telehealth, Investing in Innovation
Community Health Center Network offers its providers the option to use RubiconMD's platform to request a virtual consultation from a specialist, which can prevent both unnecessary visits and delays in patient access to specialty care. Outside evaluators documented providers' experiences and satisfaction with the platform.
Investment

Unite Us

Investing in Innovation, Data Exchange
Unite Us links providers of medical care with providers of social services, enabling communities to coordinate and collectively address patients' nonclinical needs.
Publication

Innovation Landscape: Telehealth MAT

June 2019
ST Advisors
Telehealth, Investing in Innovation, Behavioral Health
This brief provides an overview of the developing but nascent landscape of organizations using telehealth to deliver medication-assisted treatment.
Publication

Infographic: Tech-Enabled Innovation in Medicaid

July 2019
Investing in Innovation
This interactive infographic highlights the areas within Medicaid where technology-enabled solutions can have the greatest impact, according to the more than 100 stakeholders that CHCF convened through its Primed Roundtable Series.
CHCF Blog

Why CHCF Is Investing to Improve Data Exchange — Again

March 5, 2019
Hong Truong
Data Exchange, Investing in Innovation
Compiling a patient’s complete health record still requires a herculean effort involving multiple web portals, reams of data files, and, yes, fax machines. As new means of data-sharing begin to change that, the safety net should not be left behind.
Investment

Verato

Investing in Innovation, Data Exchange
Verato helps health care organizations reconcile fragmented and duplicate records to create a comprehensive view of every patient’s health and history.
CHCF Blog

Can Behavioral Health Entrepreneurs Finally Break Through?

September 20, 2019
Rachel Lee
Investing in Innovation, Behavioral Health
In 2018, health tech start-ups raised nearly $400 million in funding for technology investments related to behavioral health. In what areas are innovators making genuine progress?
Publication

Promise and Pitfalls: A Look at California’s Regional Health Information Organizations

January 2019
Walter Sujansky
Investing in Innovation, Data Exchange
This report examines the various types of health information exchange resources available to provider organizations in California. It focuses on the role of nonprofit regional health information organizations and profiles the largest nine currently operating in the state.
Project

Opportunities for Emerging Technologies in the Medicaid Market

Medi-Cal, Telehealth
Despite being the nation's largest health insurer, Medicaid remains largely overlooked by investors and entrepreneurs. Learn more about the myriad opportunities for innovation within this market.

The Portfolio of CHCF Health Innovation Fund

Concert Health

Two in five Californians with low incomes who seek behavioral health care do not receive it. And many of those who do are likely to receive it in a primary care setting, where providers often lack the time and/or training to properly diagnose and manage mental health conditions. There are proven solutions for better integrating…
$1,000,000.00

Unite Us

Patients with unmet social needs, such as food insecurity, housing instability, and lack of transportation, tend to have worse health outcomes. As new payment models shift more responsibility for those outcomes onto payers and providers, they have become more invested in addressing patients’ social needs. However, it can be challenging for time-strapped providers to identify…
$1,000,000.00

Verato

In order to provide high-value, coordinated patient care, health care organizations must have a comprehensive and accurate view of their patients. Missing or incorrect information can result in wasted spending on duplicated tests, or worse — cause patients serious harm. A key source of incomplete patient records is poor patient identity management, the process by…
$1,000,000.00

Nomad Health

Like many states, California faces critical health workforce shortages. Employers in the safety net and in rural areas are especially hard pressed to hire talent with the diversity and skills to meet the needs of the patients they serve. They have a disadvantage from the start, because they lack the recruiting resources that large private…

Collective Medical

CHCF is investing in Collective Medical to help providers serving Medicaid patients with complex needs to better share and act on data about those patients in real time. Successfully coordinating a patient’s care, especially if it is complex and involves numerous providers both inside and outside of the health care system, requires effective data sharing.…
$1,000,000.00

Quartet

More than two-thirds of people with mental illness also have at least one medical condition. Yet those two health issues are typically treated in separate, siloed systems that are difficult for patients to navigate and often result in fragmented care delivery. This challenge disproportionately affects Medicaid enrollees, who are more than twice as likely as…
$700,000.00

Groups

CHCF is investing in the medication-assisted treatment company Groups to provide opioid addiction treatment to rural communities in California. Access to effective addiction treatment is severely limited or nonexistent in many areas of California, particularly in rural communities with high rates of overdose deaths. Groups provides buprenorphine — an effective medication for opioid use disorder…
$1,200,000.00

RubiconMD

CHCF invests in RubiconMD, which connects primary care providers to specialists via electronic consultations, enabling timely, expert clinic advice. Specialty care is in short supply throughout California, and statewide data show that Medi-Cal enrollees are twice as likely as those with employer-based health insurance to report difficulty seeing a specialist. Barriers to accessing specialty care…
$750,000.00

mPulse Mobile

CHCF invests in mPulse Mobile, which provides tailored, two-way communications between health plans and their members, to help Medicaid members better access health care. As a result of Medicaid expansion enabled by the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid plans have an influx of newly eligible and enrolled beneficiaries. Yet many Medicaid members are often unaware of…
$725,000.00

Landmark Health

CHCF invests in Landmark Health to support their efforts to tailor their innovative and proven model of lower-cost, quality clinical care for patients with multiple chronic conditions to California’s safety-net population. Medicaid patients with multiple chronic conditions are among the least well cared for among California’s safety-net population as well as the most expensive. To…
$900,000.00

Seamless Medical Systems

CHCF invested in Seamless Medical Systems, whose software enables patients to enter demographics, clinical history, and more on an iPad, eliminating most paper forms. Streamlining patient flow while improving the patient experience has emerged as a high priority for community health centers (CHCs), many of whom are seeing more patients as a result of health…
$750,000.00

Omada Health

CHCF invested in Omada Health to help prevent diabetes by providing patients with online coaching and virtual support groups for guidance on exercise and nutrition. Unhealthy eating and physical inactivity are the lead drivers of chronic disease in the United States, where one in three people have pre-diabetes. Recognizing the rising prevalence of chronic illness,…
$450,000.00

Healthfinch

CHCF’s Health Innovation Fund invests in healthfinch, a software platform focused on improving the quality of and access to care by automating routine, repeatable tasks to make providers more efficient. California law allows nursing staff and medical assistants to authorize routine prescription refills under physician supervision — provided the prescription is in the patient’s chart…
$450,000.00

iRhythm Technologies and Zio Patch Cardiac Monitoring

CHCF invests in iRhythm Technologies, developer of an outpatient cardiac monitor that has the potential to make diagnosing cardiac arrhythmias more efficient, cost-effective, and convenient. Abnormal heart rhythms, or arrhythmias, can be a symptom of serious cardiovascular disease. Each year, more than 2.7 million people in the United States experience arrhythmias, resulting in more than…
$1,500,000.00

DirectDerm

CHCF invests in DirectDerm, a telemedicine group that provides remote dermatology consultations, expanding access to expert, convenient, and affordable specialty care. Skin problems account for about 25% of all visits to primary care physicians. For many of these visits, the patient and physician would benefit from a consultation with a dermatologist, but the current shortage…
$740,000.00
View Full Portfolio

Advisers

Ambar Bhattacharyya
Managing Director, Maverick Ventures
Brian Chee
Managing Partner, Polaris Partners
Martin Felsenthal
Partner, Health Velocity Capital
Chris Grant
Senior Vice President, Kaiser Permanente & KP Ventures
Anna Haghgooie
Managing Director, Sandbox Industries
Lynne Chou O’Keefe
Founder and Managing Partner, Define Ventures
Tom Rodgers
SVP and Managing Director, McKesson Ventures

Team

Melissa Buckley
Director, Innovation Fund
Hong Truong
Senior Program Investment Officer
Ella Schwartz
Senior Program Investment Officer
Leslie Walker
Communications Consultant, Innovation Fund
Apryl Rhinehart
Program Associate