Farzad Mostashari, Aledade, on the power of primary care

01/09/23 • 37 min

Our guest on this episode is Dr. Farzad Mostashari. Farzad is the co-founder and CEO of Aledade, a primary care enablement company that partners with independent PCPs to transition to value-based care and, as a result, maintain their independence. Founded in 2014, Aledade works with 11,000 physicians across 40 states and DC, accounting for 1.7M patients under management in Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Commercial and Medicaid contracts. Farzad previously served as the National Coordinator for Health IT in the Department of Health and Human Services, he completed medical school at the Yale School of Medicine and a Master’s in Population Health from Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Earlier this year, Aledade raised a $123M Series E round of funding led by OMERS Growth Equity.

In this episode, I spoke with Farzad about:

His journey to starting Aledade and the role policy expertise and evidence have played in the company’s success
Why he and the company are betting on independent physicians as the drivers of change in value-based care
How Aledade became the rare profitable health tech company

In this episode, I spoke with Farzad about:

His journey to starting Aledade and the role policy expertise and evidence have played in the company’s success
Why he and the company are betting on independent physicians as the drivers of change in value-based care
How Aledade became the rare profitable health tech company

Previous Episode

Iman Abuzeid, MD, CEO & Co-Founder of Incredible Health, on helping healthcare workers find and do their best work

In this episode, I sat down with Iman Abuzeid, MD, CEO and Co-Founder of Incredible Health. Founded in 2017, Incredible Health, the highest valued tech-enabled career marketplace in healthcare, transforms the hiring process for both nurses and health systems. In August 2022, Incredible Health raised an $80M Series B round led by Base10 Partners. The company partners with over 600 top health systems across the country, has over 10,000 nurses joining its platform every single week, and has reduced the average timeline for hiring a nurse from 82 days to less than 14.

Iman and I discuss: 1) her background in medicine and how she became a startup founder in the healthcare ecosystem, 2) the current nurse staffing crisis that’s on track to leave the US 1M nurses short by the end of 2023 and how we got here, 3) how Incredible Health is reducing nurse burnout, improving retention, and empowering hospitals to set up their nursing workforces for career advancement, and 4) Iman’s evolution as a leader and how she has invested in herself and her team to keep up with the company’s growth.

Next Episode

Dr. Anne-Maree Cantwell, Empactful Capital, on Investing in the Future of Digital Health Innovation

In this episode, I sat down with Anne-Maree Cantwell, Venture Partner at Empactful Capital. Founded in 2016 by veteran healthcare operators and investors, Empactful Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that deploys targeted funds to invest in digital health companies that operate in the value-based care and behavioral-mental health verticals. Empactful brings its healthcare industry operating expertise and relationship leverage to help its portfolio companies scale.

In this episode, Anne-Maree and I discussed: 1) Her background in medicine, and how that helped her both scale telehealth at Kaiser Permanente and become a Venture Capital investor, 2) Experiences scaling telehealth before the pandemic telemedicine boom, and what constitutes a successful telemedicine program, including the future of virtual care, 3) Empacful Capital’s approach to investing in leading digital health companies that are tech-enabled, including a recent investment example, Care Continuity, and 4) Perspectives on key digital healthcare trends in 2023, including the online treatment of higher acuity mental health disorders, AI applications on patients and providers, and use of consumer devices to detect medical conditions.