Brad Smith is back with the band.
The former Aspire Health CEO has been named executive chairman of Nashville-based long-term support company CareBridge Health, Smith and CEO Mike Tudeen said.
CareBridge was formed early last year by a group of former Aspire executives, including former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, with the help of a $40 million round of funding led by Greenwich, Connecticut-based venture capital firm Oak HC/FT.
Aspire, which was co-founded in 2013 by Frist and Smith, is one of Nashville’s most successful health care startups in recent years, and was sold to Indianapolis-based health insurance giant Anthem Inc.
CareBridge’s services are aimed at assisting low-income seniors, disabled people and others in need of long-term care with daily tasks such as bathing, administering medication and arranging appointments. CareBridge allows members, caregivers and health plans to share clinical information, while providing around-the-clock support and daily check-ins inside the patient’s home.
The company’s platform helps states and insurance companies identify which seniors need what service, at what level and coordinate the appropriate reimbursement, with the goal of lowering costs.
As the leader of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation during the Trump Administration, Smith said he couldn’t be involved in CareBridge when it was launched, but made a personal investment in CareBridge when he got back from D.C. and helped recruit some key executives to the startup’s team. Smith would not disclose the amount he invested in CareBridge, but said it was his largest personal investment in a company to date.
“What was really interesting while at CMMI, looking at where innovation was occurring across the country, there was a lot of innovation in Medicare and especially Medicare Advantage … but there was very little innovation happening on Medicaid side across the country,” Smith said. “What was so interesting to me [about CareBridge] was the focus on those high-risk populations and being the only company in the country that has really built an innovative full-risk solution for the Medicaid population. It’s also really impressive how fast Mike and the company have grown.”
In January 2020, CareBridge had about 20 employees and three health insurance companies as clients, including United Healthcare Tennessee and Anthem Inc. Today, Tudeen said the company has 14 clients and is operating in 10 states and the District of Columbia. He expects CareBridge to employ 131 people, mostly in Nashville, by the end of the year.
Tudeen credits CareBridge’s growth to the “unique” services it offers.
“Nobody has the technology and broad based platform and solution set that we’re offering. Candidly, we’re just finding that our solutions are resonating with the [health insurance] plans that we’re talking to,” Tudeen said. “We intentionally started with some of the largest [health insurance companies] in the country — the Uniteds and the Anthem Inc.’s of the world — to get that Good Housekeeping seal of approval.”
In addition to Smith, CareBridge has also added former Landmark Health Chief Financial Officer Brandon Kerns to its team in the same role, Dr. Erica David-Park as vice president of decision support and associate medical director and Manas Sharma as chief of staff.
Tudeen said the next 12 months will be focused on growth, with an eye toward expanding into states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York and California.
With that, CareBridge will likely look to raise more money in 2022, Smith said.
“We see a tremendous amount of growth in the future and we’re excited to pursue that aggressively,” Smith said.
