Make some time over the morning cuppa or lunch for a brilliant investigative report on Transcarent and Glen Tullman. Arundhati Parmar over at MedCity News pulls aside some of those Great Oz curtains, surveys the scene, then asks the questions that few have dared to. Such as:
- Is Transcarent’s model not working? Are they successful or not?
- Or are those corporations and benefits consultants so hidebound, so powerful, so exclusive, that they forced Glen Tullman to buy into the traditional care navigation model–and he is a Victim of the System?
Those of us in the healthtech/digital health industry have looked with amazement, mixed with dismay, at Mr. Tullman. The amazement is the powerful voice he has among us, reinforced by his investment funds. The dismay comes from the $18 billion sale of Livongo to Teladoc in the palmy days of 2020. As we reported, even then it was regarded as a dubious move. It then became a case study in What Not To Buy–Or Do. From Mr. Tullman’s and his management’s perspective, Teladoc’s offer proved to be Grand Theft Auto. In other words, a heist to end all heists. For Teladoc, it was a disaster. Mr. Gorevic, as we know, is gone and Teladoc is rebuilding. In many ways, Teladoc has never recovered and may never.
Mr. Tullman, who founded two VCs, 7wireVentures and most recently 62 Ventures, after selling Livongo almost at once founded Transcarent with a vision that it would do the job through software that human corporate care navigators and benefits consultants couldn’t do–take out all these middlemen and deliver to both companies and their employees better quality healthcare at a much lower cost. It would also turn the PMPM (per member per month) pricing scheme into a risk-sharing model based on use. He made the rounds at every conference pitching against traditional care navigators, including the most prominent, Accolade.
Last month, he and Transcarent made a substantial offer to buy, yes, Accolade, for $621 million [TTA 8 Jan]. Publicly traded and struggling for years, recently losing major accounts, Accolade was on the block–yet its model is so different than Transcarent’s that it feels like double vision. In fact, this deal had been in the works since last July–initiated by Glen Tullman. Why?
A clue from one of Ms. Parmar’s sources, most of whom have had to be anonymous for obvious reasons:
“He is an amazing storyteller and amateur magician. But like any story and magic trick, sometimes it’s hard to tell what is real and the trick doesn’t work. ”
Ms. Parmar’s path to answering these questions is top notch, and this Editor invites you to read it, start to finish–and return to it again. When you finish it, you’ll not only know about Transcarent’s current business realities, but also learn a great deal about how companies regard care navigation plus the economics. The discrepancy, as always, is between the ‘vision’ and reality. Is he in it for the mission, or has reality bitten? Is Glen Tullman a Hypocrite or a Victim of the System He Aimed to Disrupt? (I also want to commend MedCity News for publishing this)
Update: See Ms. Parmar’s video on LinkedIn regarding the response to her article. Of note: 1) the complete lack of response from Transcarent’s corporate communications team*. 2) If you want investigative journalism, you have to be willing to be a source, so when you see something wrong, you have to reach out. That means risk. (*No surprise to this Editor, who directly contacted Transcarent’s corporate comms team to clarify whether 98point6’s telehealth service, purchased for $100 million, still was operating–no reply to this simple ‘layup’. TTA 5 Feb)
Our ‘extra of the day’ is from AI Health Uncut. Sergei Polevikov, publishing on Substack, puts on the scuba gear and dives deep not only into Hippocratic AI, which promotes AI agents for various types of healthcare contact requirements, but also its key funder, General Catalyst and its head, Hemant Taneja. For starters: Hippocratic AI is the most expensive AI company on Planet Earth if viewed as valuation x revenue multiple. Mr. P brings the numbers and the heat.
If you’ve looked at fundings in the past two years, versus the ‘olden days’, and wonder why the same names always seem to pop up, it is because VC fundings have become concentrated among very few companies. As this Editor noted in the Rock Health 2024 results, of 391 VC funds, 30 raised 75% of all US committed capital. Nine of those funds accounted for 50% (Pitchbook). Sitting at or near the top is General Catalyst, which has moved into wealth management and through HATco, owning hospitals such as Summa Health. But there are other reasons as well, and Mr. Polevikov gets into the murk. It’s another one for a long cuppa or lunch. And it is part one of two, upcoming!
I encourage our Readers to support Sergei’s work on Substack–for a modest annual subscription amount, you gain full access to his work, past and present, charts, videos, and articles. (I did, and have noted his site among Websites We Like.) The link above may be paywalled as a result for non-subscribers. [Disclaimer: through commenting in this article, I pointed out GC’s move into GC Wealth, and my short news item is linked.] He also recently posted a lively panel discussion video with Alex Koshykov, Matthew Holt, and James Wang.
2025 is proving to be a year of massive change in healthcare. It may be a year of comeuppance for those we’ve regarded as all powerful and fearsome. Yes, the cliché ‘sunshine is the best disinfectant’ is true, but a good dose of hydrogen peroxide, boric acid, or Lysol helps.
Resuscitated, according to Tuesday reports. CNBC’s David Faber, currently co-anchor of CNBC’s morning “Squawk on the Street”, said Tuesday (yesterday) that the take-private deal of Walgreens Boots Alliance by Sycamore Partners and possibly other entities, has gone from “dead” to “alive” in his books.
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