Throughout her career at Ohio State University and OhioHealth Corp., Autumn Glover has used her skills as an urban planner to help under-served populations achieve health equity.
In April, Glover left those $5 billion-plus organizations for a 70-person tech startup: She's now vice president of provider and community partnerships at chronic disease-reversal startup AndHealth.
"I came here because equity is happening by design," Glover said. "Long before I understood the technology and the model that we were delivering, I really was inspired that we're building something that truly is for all.
"Something that is unique about AndHealth is that equity is not a separate product or service – it really is the business."
Glover helped expand AndHealth services to new populations, such as becoming credentialed with Third Street Family Health Services in northern Ohio.
That's one of several deals this spring that will form sprouts of AndHealth's intended multi-branch system to reach anyone suffering from the painful, costly conditions it treats – regardless of income.
Founded by Matt Scantland, co-founder of CoverMyMeds, And Health LLC launched in February 2022 with $57 million in private equity funding, following several months of quiet testing with patients. Unlike telehealth platforms that connect to doctors, AndHealth becomes the direct care provider as well.
"We believe that everyone deserves access to world-class care, and our ambitions around health equity really compel us to figure out how to make this model work everywhere," Scantland said in an exclusive interview.
Here are AndHealth's main distribution channels so far:
- Large self-insured employers: National benefits brokers such as Marsh McLennan, AssuredPartners and Oswald Cos. include AndHealth among direct benefits that hundreds of employers can purchase. Oswald, for example, is rolling out the program in 70 K-12 schools in Ohio. Meanwhile, Willis Towers Watson reported positive results from a pilot with its employees in a podcast touting AndHealth's model as "brilliant," but has not announced a broader engagement.
- Small to medium businesses: The Ohio Chamber of Commerce offers AndHealth in its Health Benefit Program, used by about 1,600 employers with two to 50 employees, representing some 20,000 workers and dependents. That could spread to similar state-regulated multi-member insurance models, in which companies have independent health plans, but access the economies of scale of a much larger group.
- Low-income, rural or other populations with little or no access to specialty care: Third Street Family Health Services, a Mansfield federally qualified community health center serving Richland, Ashland and Crawford counties, made AndHealth a credentialed specialty provider, charging on its income-based sliding fee scale. If that model spreads, community health centers cover some 30 million Americans nationwide. Also, the startup is talking to rural hospitals in areas with shortages of specialty care.
- Insurers: AndHealth didn't expect to join health plan networks until 2024, Scantland said. But already some have started talks because they noticed that reversing chronic conditions does more to reduce claim costs than restricting usage of drugs or specialists, which only leads to more complications down the road.
An early Central Ohio client was Aware, the venture-backed cybersecurity and employee engagement analytics company in the Arena District, which started with the migraine program and added autoimmune conditions.
This month, Dublin-based Quantum Health Inc. adopted AndHealth for its own 2,000 employees, with the potential to add it as a partner for some 500 employers using Quantum's health benefits navigator service.
Instead of a blanket fee for every covered person, AndHealth charges only for patients who use the program, and keeps that amount less than what the employer saves on medical claims, Scantland said.
"Our employer patients and our (community health center) patients get the same care at the same cost, which is unique and different," Glover said.
About the care bottleneck AndHealth targets
Migraine affects about 12% of the population – some 39 million Americans, according to American Migraine Foundation. But there are only about 2,000 headache specialists to care for them.
Similarly, there are long waits to see specialists for rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn’s. Most of Ohio's rural counties have no specialists. Depending on insurance and travel times, many people with the conditions give up, or at best see a doctor once a year.
AndHealth "force multiplies" specialists through technology, Scantland said. Patients get blood tests and other diagnostics at a lab, and see doctors via telehealth to diagnose root causes, such as food intolerances or musculoskeletal issues.
"Say 80% of our health outcomes get created in our environment – actually seeing the patient in their environment is helpful," Scantland said. "We're treating the patient in the home – and we can put a clinician anywhere in the state."
Then a health coach has frequent in-app contact to guide the patients – who are highly motivated to end pain – through behavioral changes that will help. The company employs nurse practitioners, nutritionists, pharmacists, behavioral health professionals and others to help shape and carry out care.
"We can take little baby steps with a patient," Scantland said. "When we do that, it makes change easier. And all of those things are highly influenced by technology and by innovation around the operating model.
"I think of it as the baby of a software company plus a world-class provider organization."
Patients also are seeing dramatic improvements in heart health, weight and mental health as a "side effect," Scantland said. The company has observed depression symptoms dropped by half.
"Closing that gap between what is clinically possible and what is routinely achieved, that's really the 'why' – and then closing that gap for anyone, not just someone at a high-end employer," he said.
Aiming for a greater impact on public health
Over the past two years, Glover was senior director of community health partnerships at OhioHealth, the region's largest hospital system.
Before that, for the final two of her 18 years at Ohio State, she was president of its Partners Achieving Community Transformation, or PACT, housing and public health initiative on the Near East Side. (She's also a 2021 40 Under 40 honoree of Columbus Business First.)
AndHealth expands on that work, she said. Though a small company now, it is building relationships and investments for a wider impact on public health.
"We're going to leverage the brokers in that community, whether it's their housing authority, or the health center," Glover said. "We can invest differently and in new ways. It's exciting for me to be at the ground level and making sure that that work is designed in an intentional way.
"So today, are we in a housing related project? No, but we probably will be. We're going to learn a lot from our patients and our partners that might inform those types of investments."
