The value-based care company Tuesday Health is launching a new supportive care solution fueled by a recent $60 million funding round.
A range of investors participated in the round, including Valtruis, Blue Venture Fund, Mass General Brigham Ventures and the Medicare Advantage organization CareSource. The startup Tuesday Health launched in 2023, emerging from a partnership between Valtruis and Mass General Brigham Ventures.
“We’re dedicated to connecting individuals and their caregivers with timely, valuable resources while reducing health care’s administrative and systematic obstacles,” Joshua Boynton, senior vice president of complex health solutions at CareSource, said in a statement. “Working with Tuesday Health helps to ensure that those with serious illness diagnoses seamlessly receive member-centric, supportive care, so their caregivers can focus on what matters — the person, not paperwork.”
In the near term, Tuesday Health has several principal objectives for using the funds, according to CEO Jim Wieland. These include building out the clinical infrastructure, hiring experienced management and frontline teams and then technology investments — particularly for the company’s proprietary mytuesday app.
The company also expects to expand into new markets. Tuesday Health will be going live in Ohio in July, Wieland said, with plans to expand into additional states before the end of the year.
Finally, the funds help create a “runway” to sustainability as the company begins to grow.
“Because it’s value-based and we’re taking on risk, it takes a long time. You have to have a runway to see the results of the efforts and the impact of the efforts that we have both from a caregiver/member perspective,” Wieland told Palliative Care News. “From a financial perspective, it takes a long time for that to mature. So it gives us the runway.”
Tuesday Health’s supportive care services operate on hybrid in-person and virtual model, according to Dr. Mihir Kamdar, head of care delivery of Tuesday Health.
Nurses and advanced practice practitioners (APPs) provide clinical care to patients in their homes. Layered over that is the mytuesday app, which is designed for continuous patient monitoring and allows patients to self-report symptoms or changes in their conditions.
In addition, Tuesday’s APPs will offer telehealth services. These clinicians can also provide additional remote support or consultations during in-person home visits.
Tuesday’s patient population consists of those who have complex health needs and high risk for hospitalization, Kamdar indicated.
“We’re really looking for patients who are diagnosed with a serious illness, who generally have a prognosis of 12 to 18 months but are also at higher risk for symptom issues, functional status changes and acute care utilization,” Kamdar told Palliative Care News. “It’s disease agnostic, so we’ll take all patients that fit that criteria.”
The company is also in the process of building out a diverse payer mix, Wieland said. This includes Medicare Advantage Plans, Accountable Care Organizations and Managed Care Organizations, in addition to at-risk primary care and specialty groups.
“Medicare Advantage is a big component of that, but within that the dual-eligible population is a significant component. From a delegated perspective, it’s the subspecialty groups that are taking risk on this population,” Wieland said. “We’ve had a number of conversations with them, and this is a blind spot. They initially believe that their providers could deal with this or get it right, but as you know, the supportive care space requires unique expertise. It’s also outside of the scope of what these guys do on a day-to-day basis.”
