By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Get the details behind the deal! Signify Health providers (NYSE: SGFY) is acquiring Caravan Health for $220 million in cash and common stock in effort to create one of the largest networks of at-risk healthcare in the country. For all those who love healthcare payment model innovation, this is a story about scaling both value-based care and accountable care organizations (ACOs), and we have Signify Health’s CEO Kyle Armbrester and Caravan Health’s founder and Chairwoman Lynn Barr here to explain the model and market potential this creates for Signify Health.

Signify Health is best known for its value-based, care-at-home focused approach in the Medicare Advantage space, and Caravan Health brings both tech and expertise to support the creation of accountable care organizations (ACOs) and the ongoing smart management of their patient populations. Caravan got its start with “safety net providers” in rural areas and pioneered what’s known as the “Collaborative ACO” approach that pools smaller health systems together based on practice similarities (instead of geography) to achieve the right kind of patient scale needed to mitigate risk. This is really important to scaling ACOs nationally, as you’ll hear both Lynn and Kyle explain, and, of course, we ask Kyle to zero-in on how this will extend Signify Health’s reach into new markets as well .

Beyond the acquisition, we also celebrate Signify Health’s one-year IPO-iversary. The company rang the bell on the New York Stock Exchange (then stopped by WTF Health to talk about it!) on Feb 11, 2021. Looking past the Caravan Health acquisition and to what it will lead to next, Kyle and Lynn (who will now be activating even more payment model innovation as Signify Health’s VP of Innovation) get fired up about what’s ahead.