Harbor Well being, an Austin, Texas-based main and specialty care clinic group and medical health insurance firm, has acquired dementia care platform Rippl.
Rippl’s dementia care platform is constructed to assist seniors residing with dementia stay at dwelling and out of the emergency division, hospital, and post-acute settings.
The acquisition advances Harbor Well being’s technique to develop its condition-focused care pathways and strengthen the corporate’s built-in mannequin, which mixes experience in continual situation administration and entry to coordinated, inexpensive medical health insurance.
Harbor stresses that providing care and protection mixed permits suppliers to take higher care of individuals by each step of the well being journey, higher aligning insurance coverage advantages with the appropriate care.
As a part of the deal for an undisclosed sum, Rippl’s buyers are making a brand new dedication to the mixed firm. Key buyers embody Kin Ventures, ARCH Enterprise Companions, Normal Catalyst, GV (Google Ventures), F-Prime Capital, JSL Well being, and Mass Normal Brigham Ventures.
Harbor Well being was co-founded by Clay Johnston, Ph.D., M.D., M.P.H., who beforehand served because the inaugural dean of the College of Texas at Austin Dell Medical College. In a December 2024 interview with Healthcare Innovation, Johnston described his bold targets:
“What we’re attempting to do is create the entire working system. Presently, the whole lot works on price for service, and there is the RVU system that sort of drives clinician conduct, and there are copays, coinsurance, deductibles,” he stated. “What we’re attempting to do is rebuild all of that stuff to vary the underlying incentive constructions and working system in order that it then can turn out to be extra simply exportable.”
In October 2024, Healthcare Innovation interviewed Rippl Co-founder and CEO Kris Engskov concerning the alternative for value-based fashions in dementia care. On the time, the Seattle-based firm had lately raised $23 million in Sequence A capital to fund its multi-state growth.
A former Starbucks government, Engskov mentioned Rippl’s founding and participation within the CMS Innovation Middle Guiding an Improved Dementia Expertise (GUIDE) Mannequin, which has 390 taking part organizations constructing dementia care applications to serve lots of of hundreds of individuals with Medicare nationwide.
“We’ve all the time understood professional dementia care works greatest when it’s deeply built-in with main care, and we’re excited to see Harbor Well being scale this platform as a part of its broader effort to ship condition-focused care and higher outcomes whereas dramatically lowering pointless prices,” Engskov stated in a press release.
The acquisition additionally expands Harbor Well being’s companies into the Florida market. Following its 2025 acquisition of 32 VillageMD clinics, Harbor Well being stated it continues to develop its evidence-based care pathways. The dementia care program might be out there to individuals receiving care at Harbor Well being and VillageMD areas in Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and El Paso. As well as, Rippl companies will proceed to be offered to Medicare Benefit members in addition to seniors lined by conventional Medicare by CMS’ GUIDE program.
“Integrating Rippl’s dementia platform into our increasing library of condition-focused care pathways offers our well being groups one other highly effective instrument to handle complicated well being wants,” stated Tony Miller, Harbor Well being co-founder and CEO, in a press release. “As our well being plan membership grows quickly, these pathways are important for holding protection extra inexpensive and taking higher care of individuals. That’s our precedence.”
