Originally published by Crain’s New York Business Health Pulse. By Amanda D’Ambrosio.
Community health center network Sun River Health has inked a partnership with OwnaHealth, a virtual care startup aiming to reverse chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity among Medicaid enrollees, Crain’s has learned.
The deal allows Sun River Health, which serves 250,000 patients per year across its 50 federally qualified health centers throughout the city, Long Island and the Hudson Valley, to refer patients with type 2 diabetes or obesity to OwnaHealth’s virtual care clinic. The clinic provides video visits with a medical provider to adjust medications, counseling from a dietitian and personalized low-carb meal plans, among other tools.
Under the partnership, OwnaHealth is expanding its patient base and gaining access to 100,000 eligible patients at Sun River Health who have type 2 diabetes, prediabetes or obesity, said David Weingard, the company’s president. Meanwhile, Sun River Health can refer patients and get reimbursed for virtual appointments, while pushing for better outcomes among patients with chronic illnesses.
“Access in the Medicaid space to diabetes care is horrible,” Weingard said. “We are all about helping as many people as we can.
OwnaHealth was founded in 2023 to deploy a food-as-medicine approach to treat diabetes. The startup has existing partnerships with other providers in the city, including BronxCare and Essen Health Care. Jason Helgerson, the state’s former Medicaid director who led the Medicaid Redesign Team effort in 2011, sits on the company’s board.
Weingard said the company is focused on growing in New York for the moment. An estimated 1.9 million New Yorkers, or 12.3% of the population, are diagnosed with diabetes, according to data from the Department of Health, and the prevalence is higher among American Indian/Alaska Native, Black and Hispanic adults.
Roughly 800,000 adults in New York City had diabetes as of 2022 — equal to 11% of the population, according to a report from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Dr. Amanda Ascher, chief medical officer at Sun River Health, said in a statement that the organization pursued the OwnaHealth partnership “because of the great clinical outcomes they’ve been able to achieve, and to enable us to further deepen our diabetes care for Sun River Health patients.”
