Newest healthcare unicorn on the block is upending clinical admin with AI

The news: Healthcare AI company Iodine Software became the latest healthcare unicorn with a new private equity investment from Advent International, per Fierce Healthcare.

More in Iodine: The company claims to have over 800 health system customers in the US, including Mount Sinai, Tenet Healthcare, HCA, Advent, and Baylor Scott & White.

• And unlike many of its digital health counterparts, Iodine’s CEO says the company is currently profitable and saw 40% revenue growth from 2020 to 2021.

What it does: Iodine’s AI-powered software solutions address automation for clinical administration and revenue cycle management.

Iodine’s CognitiveML AI engine filters through large amounts of clinical data to make clinical assessments.

• Those assessments then help providers automate tasks that traditionally require evaluation by a human to complete.
• The new PE investment will be channeled toward expanding applications of CognitiveML into other areas of care delivery.

Meanwhile, its AwareCDI Suite identifies and captures mid-revenue cycle leakages (like discrepancies in reimbursement and clinical documentation) to make sure healthcare services are accurately coded and to optimize revenues.

It also offers other AI-powered clinical documentation solutions via its previous acquisitions of ChartWise and Artifact Health.

Market snapshot:

What’s next? AI-powered automation is becoming a major priority for health leaders as clinical documentation evolves with more data than ever before flooding through the US healthcare system.

• 44% of health system and hospital leaders say that automation is a top priority over the next year, per Guidehouse’s 2021 Provider Health IT and Corporate Services Trends report.

Provider organizations are running a tight ship when it comes to their finances thanks to the pandemic—and automation can help them reduce unnecessary spending.

• 76% of US healthcare leaders say cutting wasteful spending will help them recuperate and grow faster, according to Sage Growth Partners 2021 State of Healthcare Automation report.

To add, a recent analysis by McKinsey found that automating healthcare admin processes could help the US health system save up to $265 billion annually (~$1,300 per adult).