Pear Healthcare Playbook Vivien Ho, Dr. Andrew Parambath, and Lipsa Panda

This episode is part of Pear VC's series on Medicaid, covering the basics that founders need to know to build innovations that support communities in need.

Today, we're delighted to introduce Taylor Justice, the driving force behind Unite Us, a company that uses advanced technology solutions to coordinate community-focused social care and integrate social drivers of health into the healthcare continuum and regulatory landscape.  

Unite Us developed the first closed-loop referral (CLR) platform that links social care service delivery with detailed outcomes to understand a person’s total health journey. The platform streamlines collaboration among healthcare professionals, community organizations, health plans, and government agencies to provide real-time visibility into the community impact and actionable insights. Through active engagement and accountability, this model increases the efficiency of social care and improves the experience by removing the onus from the patient to navigate eligibility requirements for local services.  

Founded in 2013, Unite Us has grown to more than 600 employees serving communities across the US. The company's investors include ICONIQ, Oak HC/FT, and more who are helping advance the company's mission to connect people to the care they need to improve their lives.

Taylor started his career in the US Army. After serving in the infantry, he transitioned into an Account Executive role at CCS Medical. From there he became a sales engineer for JDSU which offers products and solutions for communications. After that, Taylor started his entrepreneurial journey co-founding the consulting firm, HigherEchelon, which helped organizations meet their performance goals. In 2013, he co-founded Unite Us and serves as President to this day.

Taylor holds a BS in Latin American Studies and Environmental Engineering from West Point Academy and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

In this episode, we explore Taylor’s founding journey and how Unite Us's closed-loop referral process is improving care outcomes. We also discuss what it's like to be at the forefront of using social determinants of health data in Medicaid.

This episode is part of Pear VC's series on Medicaid, covering the basics that founders need to know to build innovations that support communities in need.



Today, we're delighted to introduce Tracy Douglas, the CEO of Virginia Community Healthcare Association (VCHA), which is the primary care association representing Virginia’s Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) . 

Tracy brings over 25 years of healthcare administration and operations experience. She has held executive roles in FQHCs in Indiana and Maryland, overseeing multiple locations across both states. In these roles, she led operations, maintained financial strength, and supported strategic goals to achieve excellence in medical practices, programs, and services. Tracy has  managed operations in various healthcare settings, including pediatric centers of excellence, providing cardiac, kidney, and pulmonary services, both clinic-based and surgical. She also oversaw outpatient and inpatient acute care services and led a large health system’s managed care division. Additionally, Tracy served as the Executive Director of a for-profit physician-hospital organization.

In her current role, Tracy  is responsible for the overall operation, management, program development, and fiscal control of VCHA. She also advocates for the Association’s members with federal, state, and local policymakers to ensure they have the tools and resources needed to improve access to primary care for the underserved in Virginia.

Tracy received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park, and her master’s degree in General Administration with a focus on Healthcare Administration from the University of Maryland University College.

In this episode, we learn about the scope of FQHC services, how FQHCs are financed, what challenges they face and how they evaluate vendors.

This episode is part of Pear VC's series on Medicaid, covering the basics that founders need to know to build innovations that support communities in need.



Today, we're excited to get to know Eliot Fishman, a director at CMMI who focuses on policy and programs that affect Medicaid beneficiaries.

Eliot comes to us with a long history of impact in public health policy. Eliot started his career as a policy associate at Mt. Sinai Health System in NYC and then went on to Manatt, Phelps & Phelps. He transitioned into a management policy role on the provider side again at MJHS, a large health system in the New York Area before he left to join the government. 

Eliot then served at NJ Department of Health and Senior Services and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for several years across different groups on Medicaid, Medicare and CHIP. Eliot also served in consulting roles at Health Management Associates and at nonprofits like Families USA.

In this episode, we learn about payment models within CMMI that attempt to foster innovation in care delivery for Medicaid, program and payment integrity and value-based care models as well as how the Federal government collaborates with State governments to improve care delivery.

Today, we're so excited to get to know Web Sun, President and Co-Founder of Komodo Health. Komodo Health leverages data-driven insights to enhance patient care and alleviate disease burdens. Their platform analyzes de-identified real-world data from a wide range of sources to  offer detailed patient-level insights around treatment, diagnosis, costs, and outcomes for millions of patients across the U.S. Web oversees operations including business development, sales and marketing, and people.

Prior to founding Komodo Health, Web was a managing director at Zephyr Health, a leading life sciences data and insights solution provider, running all non-Engineering functions. He spent nearly eight years as vice president at Campbell Alliance (now Syneos Health) where he advised enterprise life sciences companies across corporate development, brand management and marketing, commercial effectiveness and medical affairs initiatives.



Web also served as an Executive Advisor to Reify Health, Heads Up Health and other healthcare/healthtech startups focused on Big Data, SaaS, Healthcare IT, and Predictive Analytics to improve patient outcomes. 

In this episode, we explore Komodo Health's origins, the creation of their MVP and key products, their transformative impact on healthcare, their future with AI, and Web's unique insights for founders navigating the data science and healthcare landscape.

Welcome back to the Pear Healthcare Playbook! Every week, we’ll be getting to know trailblazing healthcare leaders and diving into building a digital health business from 0 to 1.

Today, we're thrilled to introduce Ron Vianu, the CEO and visionary behind Covera Health. Covera Health is a pioneering AI-enabled diagnostic technology company, specializing in radiology performance measurement and its consequential impact on healthcare. With a career spanning over three decades, Ron has been a driving force at the intersection of healthcare, technology, and insurance.

Ron's entrepreneurial journey began over 30 years ago, founding his first health tech company while a senior at NYU.    His first deep exposure to the field of Radiology was with Spreemo, a company he founded with his co-founder, an orthopedic surgeon, in 2010.  Spreemo was a referral management platform in the occupational medicine space. Spreemo grew to over 200 employees across offices in New York City and Dallas and received significant investment from venture and PE investors. 

In this episode, we talk about Ron’s work with Spreemo, how he started Covera Health, the partnership with Walmart, his thoughts on the future of AI in radiology, and advice he has for founders. 

Founded in 2020, Pearl Health was incubated by AlleyCorp and has raised a total of $95M in funding from 8 investors, led by Andreesen Horowitz and Viking Global Investors. Pearl now has over 100 employees and closed a $75M Series B in January of 2023.

Pearl Health is a provider enablement and value-based care technology company that helps primary care providers and healthcare organizations succeed in value-based care, starting with ACO REACH and, soon, MSSP and Medicare Advantage.. Pearl does this by helping PCPs and their staff focus attention on high-risk patients and conditions, enabling practices with insights to programs deliver high quality, holistic care to patients at the right time. In 2024, Pearl is partnering with about 1,800 primary care providers, who collectively serve more than 80,000 patients, across the US in 43 states and Washington, D.C.

With over 20 years of experience in healthcare, Jennifer started her career at Triage Consulting Group. She then served as a consultant at Deloitte for 5 years and moved on to Takeda Oncology where she was an Associate Director in market access. She then spent six years at athenahealth where she served in a series of roles in product management, ultimately concluding as an Executive Director for product management. 

After Athena, Jennifer moved onto a VP / Head of Product role at Hint Health and finally became the Chief Product Officer at Pearl Health in 2021. Jennifer holds a BA from University of California, Berkeley and an MHA from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In this episode, we learn how Pearl Health is trying to improve primary care provider workflows in value-based care, how Jennifer thinks about product management, and where Pearl Health is going next, with their partnerships with retail pharmacies.