What to know about Olive’s Verata Health acquisition:
- In a $120 million deal, Olive (an Ohio-based AI company focused on improving healthcare options) acquired Verata Health (a Bloomington-based healthcare company using AI to enable smoother prior authorizations)
- With the Verata Health acquisition, more than 60 Verata employees will join the Olive team, including several executives
- Lori Jones, Chief Revenue Officer, will retain her title and will also take on the role of President, Provider Market
- Jeremy Friese, Chief Executive Officer at Verata, will join Olive as President, Payer Market
- YiDing Yu, Chief Medical Officer at Verata, will become Olive’s Chief Medical Officer
- Olive — valued at $1.5 billion — recently closed a $225.5 million investment round, bringing the company’s total investments to around $445 million, with plans to go public in the future
The Quote: Sean Lane, CEO of Olive
“This acquisition allows Olive to accelerate innovation in areas where we can drive the biggest impact and further expands our solutions to providers and payers seeking to transform healthcare.”
We’ve reached out to Olive for additional details on the Verata Health acquisition. [UPDATE: The $120 million amount of the deal has been included in the post.] In the meantime, read what Verata Health’s Dr. YiDing Yu, Chief Medical Officer and practicing physician, had to say about building a strong brand in our “How to Brand Build Like a Pro” piece.
Read more about the acquisition in the press release below. Release has been edited for length.
U.S.A., Dec. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Prior authorizations were the most costly and time-consuming transactions for providers in 2019 and are among the top reasons patient care is delayed. As cash-strapped hospitals and health systems strive to meet patient, payer and provider needs, the demand for AI technologies to increase efficiency and improve the patient experience has become critical. To help improve patient access to care and remedy the $31 billion prior authorization challenge, Olive announced the acquisition of Verata Health to solve prior authorizations for providers and payers via artificial intelligence as a combined solution under the Olive name.
Verata is a leading healthcare AI company, enabling Frictionless Prior Authorization® for providers and payers. Seamlessly connected to the nation’s top electronic health record (EHR) systems, Verata’s AI technology automatically initiates prior authorizations, retrieves payer rules, and helps identify and submit clinical documentation from the EHR. When payers leverage its AI platform, Verata enables point-of-care authorizations for providers and patients, dramatically accelerating access to care.
Olive and Verata’s combined prior authorization solution streamlines the process for providers, patients and payers by reducing write-offs by over 40% and cutting turnaround time for prior authorizations by up to 80%.
By integrating Verata’s solution, Olive is able to provide customers with a true end-to-end prior authorization solution. The solution starts with determining if an authorization is required, includes touchless submission of the prior authorization request, ends with automating denied claim appeals and grants hospitals a 360 degree view of their authorization performance. This means patients not only get the care they need faster, but also eliminates confusing bills patients receive post-service stating their claim has been denied by their insurance.
“Caring for patients at Mayo Clinic was life-changing,” said Dr. Jeremy Friese, CEO of Verata and former Mayo physician executive. “We started Verata to have an impact on patients and providers across the country. Combining our AI solution with Olive’s creates the leading platform to solve prior authorization on ‘both ends of the fax machine’ at providers and payers to drive impact for millions of patients.”
More than 60 Verata employees will join the Olive team following the acquisition, bringing Olive’s total employee count to approximately 500. Olive’s senior executive team will continue to grow as well:
- Lori Jones, Chief Revenue Officer, will retain her title and will also take on the role of President, Provider Market
- Dr. Jeremy Friese, Chief Executive Officer at Verata, will join Olive as President, Payer Market
- Dr. YiDing Yu, Chief Medical Officer at Verata, will become Olive’s Chief Medical Officer
“A broken healthcare system is one of the biggest challenges humanity faces today and prior authorization issues in particular are costing our nation billions of dollars. After partnering with Verata earlier this year, we saw incredible potential for Verata’s technology to reduce the amount of time and money spent on prior authorizations, and to eliminate delays in patient care,” said Sean Lane, CEO of Olive. “This acquisition allows Olive to accelerate innovation in areas where we can drive the biggest impact, and further expands our solutions to providers and payers seeking to transform healthcare.”
The acquisition follows Olive’s recent $225.5 million financing round to bolster the company’s R&D war chest and drive the growth of Olive’s AI workforce for providers and payers. Recently, Olive also announced Olive Helps: a new AI platform that delivers targeted information to healthcare workers to enable better, faster results while reducing the time spent on administrative tasks. With Olive’s recent momentum, Verata’s suite of AI tools will deepen Olive’s impact as it automates the $31 billion problem of prior authorizations in healthcare.
