Jim Prendergast — who sold his Phoenix telehealth startup in 2016 to Teladoc Inc. (NYSE: TDOC) in a deal worth $162 million — is now growing another virtual care platform in Scottsdale.
Prendergast launched Clever Health in August 2021 as a smart virtual care and prescription management platform. He's also an investor in many health care startups.
When Jim Lewis, the founder of a startup in Iowa called Benjamin, reached out to him about a year ago to see if Prendergast might consider investing in his company, Prendergast invited Lewis and his team to his Scottsdale office to hear more about what they were doing.
"I followed them for about a year and liked what they were doing and decided to take a shot at acquiring them," Prendergast said.
When Prendergast told the team his idea to acquire Benjamin, "their eyes light up," he said. "I knew I had a good chance."
Clever Health just closed the acquisition of Benjamin, a claims integration and medication therapy management company, in a stock deal valued around $4 million.
Lewis joined Clever Health as chief engagement officer.
Clever Health is creating an innovative and disruptive platform in the virtual care and prescriptions savings space, Lewis said.
"By leveraging decision support AI, asynchronous communication technology and an aligned network of pharmacies and physicians, Clever is delivering better care, faster and on average saving organizations 85 to 90% on their telehealth programs while delivering a better usage experience," Lewis said.
Rapid growth
Since launching in August 2021, Clever Health has grown from 30,000 enrollees to nearly 2 million enrollees across the nation.
With its app available for download in the Apple Store and Google Play, Clever Health offers smart virtual care, concierge medical providers, integrated prescription savings and mental health support.
Clever Health's customers are health insurance plans and self-insured employers.
"By integrating Benjamin, not only can we ensure a better experience and the lowest drug price in the area, but now we can also provide a personalized experience based on a user's medical history and past claims," Prendergast said. "Benjamin provides a proven path to integrate a user's claims history and proactively identifies risks of medication therapies and searches for opportunities to save money while better managing medications."
Data drives engagement, Prendergast said, so by combining medical history, claims history and current diagnostics into one virtual care platform, he can better help patients.
"I want to make the cost of a virtual care visit significantly lower while providing both our partners and patients much more value than just convenience," he said. "I want to fix things in this industry, and Benjamin is another asset to help us do just that."
With 16 employees, Prendergast said he will continue to look for additional acquisition opportunities to make his platform stronger, especially when it comes to AI and machine learning.
"I'm interested in remote monitoring applications," he said. "We'll be integrating vitals that you can get your vitals on your phone. For me, anything that can make this platform smarter."
