Lumeris takes $71M to expand population health management to 12 new markets

Companies offering to help hospitals and other providers move from fee-for-service to shared-risk population health models have begun to attract more venture capital the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

Obama-style healthcare reform provides a series of incentives for health providers to focus on keeping people well, and way from the clinic or ER, where they become expensive to deal with.

The latest population health-management company to become the beneficiary of a large chunk of funding is Saint Louis-based Lumeris. Its parent company, Essence Group Holdings Corporation (EGHC), has taken roughly $71 million funding from new and existing investors.

EGHC raised more than $141 million in two private equity rounds for Lumeris.

The company did not announce the names of the investors and had not returned calls for comment as of this writing.

Lumeris helps health systems, payors, and providers make the transition from fee-for-service to new shared-risk models for clinical and financial outcomes. The company, like Evolent Health, applies people and software to the task of helping healthcare providers understand their most at-risk and expensive populations, and develop clinical workflows that treat those patients in a cost effective way.

Lumeris says it will use the new money to expand from from eight to 20 U.S. markets by the end of 2015.

“The health care industry is undergoing a major revolution in accountability and shared responsibility for delivering better clinical outcomes for all Americans at more affordable costs by shifting from volume to value,” said Lumeris CEO Michael Long in a statement Thursday.

“In its eight initial markets, Lumeris created partnerships with leading health care organizations that provide health care services to 14 million consumers. By expanding into an additional 12 markets by the end of 2015, Lumeris expects to partner with organizations representing more than 50 million lives,” Long continued.