Cedar, a healthcare financial technology platform, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire OODA Health, a healthcare technology company focused on improving the healthcare administrative experience with payers and providers, for $425 million. By bringing together providers and payers onto one healthcare financial technology platform, Cedar can address the full set of challenges consumers face when paying for healthcare.
This acquisition comes at a time when consumer-friendly, digital-first experiences have become a hallmark of the healthcare experience, especially given healthcare consumers are getting more exposure to the billing process, and their financial burden has skyrocketed in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how technology can transform healthcare, yet healthcare billing and administration is still a huge pain point for consumers — 84 per cent of U.S. adults are worried about paying their medical bills in the next year, and one in 10 consumers simply won’t pay their bill if they don’t understand the administrative process. Ultimately, the provider and payer billing process remains fragmented with consumers often caught in the middle, leading to high costs, confusion and potentially delayed care. With Cedar’s category leadership in the provider space combined with OODA Health’s payer-integrated offering, the company is uniquely positioned to solve many of the problems that often lead to poor consumer financial experiences and administrative waste in healthcare.
“Cedar’s mission has always been to transform healthcare and deliver the best possible financial experience for consumers,” said Florian Otto, cofounder and CEO of Cedar. “We’ve made great progress toward that goal, but consumers still need greater financial clarity and more affordable healthcare — and the experience with one’s provider or one’s payer is just part of the issue. Both Cedar and OODA Health are forward-thinking when it comes to putting consumers first, and we believe that by bringing our companies together, we can identify new opportunities to help consumers — as well as payers and providers — navigate an increasingly complicated healthcare system, leading to better outcomes for all parties involved.”
Florian Otto
Over the past year, Cedar has experienced significant growth as the shift to digital health has taken hold. Through its recent $200M Series D funding, and now its agreed acquisition of OODA Health, Cedar will focus on empowering consumers with more transparency and assurance when it comes to the financial experience in healthcare, broadening its product roadmap to prioritize features that are powered by integrations with providers and payers, as well as automation use cases that advance the consumer financial experience and healthcare affordability.
“Payers and providers recognize the importance of working together to fix the broken consumer financial experience, and are more committed than ever to unlocking administrative efficiencies that drive accessibility and affordability,” said Seth Cohen, cofounder and co-CEO of OODA Health. “We’re tackling healthcare administration and billing head-on by building the most comprehensive technology and services platform for providers and payers. We’re thrilled to unite our two teams with that goal in mind and are excited to make a more positive and meaningful impact on the lives of consumers.”
With the acquisition of OODA Health, Cedar is further positioned to lead the industry as the most comprehensive healthcare financial technology platform, already engaging with more than 300,000 consumers a day. OODA Health’s platform connects payer workflows for nearly 20 organizations, such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona, CommonSpirit Health and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, and Cedar currently partners with more than 35 healthcare providers across the United States, including Yale New Haven Health (YNHHS), Summit Health, Novant Health and ChristianaCare.
Mr. Otto will continue to serve as CEO for the combined company, and OODA Health’s Cohen will become president of Cedar, in addition to joining Cedar’s board of directors. Additionally, Cedar cofounder Arel Lidow and OODA Health cofounder Anshul Amar will serve as co-chief makers within the executive team. The company will be headquartered in New York City, and will expand its footprint as a result of the transaction with additional offices in San Francisco and Salt Lake City.
Learn more about Cedar Health in this Bankless Times profile.
