By Joel Stinnett  –  Reporter, Nashville Business Journal

Published via Nashville Business Journal, on 02/19/2021

One of Nashville’s newest health care companies has secured funding from one of the nations largest not-for-profit health plans.

Monogram Health has received a strategic investment from Scan Group, who’s holdings include Scan Health Plan (stylized: SCAN Health Plan), according to a news release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

According to an filing made Thursday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, however, Monogram raised $8.1 million of a possible $10.1 million round of debt funding at the end of January.

It’s not clear if the two deals are connected and Mongram did not immediately comment on the SEC filing.

The investment comes less than a year after Mongram closed on a $7 million round of funding led by Frist Cressey Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, which brought the company’s lifetime cash raised at the time to $12 million.

Founded in January 2019 by Michael Uchrin and Frist Cressey co-founder Sen. Bill Frist, the kidney disease management company works with health insurance plans, such as Humana Medicare Advantage and Commercial, to care for chronic kidney disease patients inside their homes across 20 states. Depending on the stage of the patient’s disease, Monogram works to either stabilize a patient’s disease progression, prepare the patient for dialysis or transplant or improve treatment results for patients already on dialysis.

Scan is a not-for-profit Medicare Advantage plan, with more than 220,000 members in California, according to the release. The plan’s investment in Monogram marks the first time Scan has invested in an outside entity. 

In May, Uchrin told the NBJ that Monogram was preparing for a period of rapid growth in part because of the enactment of the 21st Century Cures Act, which allows Medicare beneficiaries with end-stage renal disease to enroll in 2021 Medicare Advantage plans through private insurers for the first time.

“We are pleased to partner with Scan to offer advanced solutions that expand access to evidence-based therapies and proactive planning,” Frist, Monogram’s chairman, said in the release. “By leveraging the power of Medicare Advantage plans to provide better care to older adults at a lower cost, both of our organizations will work together to ensure that people with kidney disease can take greater control of their health and quality of life.”

In addition to the funding, Scan and Monogram have signed a strategic agreement to “to work together to improve care for older adults with kidney disease, according to the release.”

“The Covid-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the home as a safe health care setting for dialysis and other kidney-related care,” Uchrin said in the release. “Monogram’s solutions empower vulnerable patients with renal disease to be treated in the comfort and safety of their own homes. This innovative approach to managing kidney care delivery is improving health outcomes for a population that drastically needs and deserves better care.”