New partnership expands ABQ-based Karoo Health’s presence across US

A local startup plans to deploy its cardiac value-based care model and technology to a Chicago-based Medicare Advantage insurer.

Albuquerque-based Karoo Health announced this week it has partnered with Zing Health, an insurer with a presence across a half dozen states.

“Zing is an innovative, first-mover insurer, as evidenced by how it partners and structures its specialty contracts, tailored to serve its growing and expansive membership base, and its commitment to cardiac (value-based care),” Karoo CEO and cofounder Ian Koons said in a statement. “Their goals align with ours by making quality cardiac care more accessible and cost-efficient. It’s arrangements like this that allow us to be America’s cardiac solution.”

Karoo formed in 2021, quickly building out its platform that enables providers to manage comprehensive, coordinated support services for patients with heart disease. Karoo’s digital system connects health care providers involved in a patient’s care into an integrated platform to update and share all information and coordinate timely intervention and consultation for patients through text-based communications.

Koons told the Journal this week that his company has partnerships with more than 700 cardiologists across nearly a dozen states. In partnering with Zing, Karoo can now advance cardiac value-based care for Zing’s Medicare Advantage members in Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois.

The news follows a list of other moves by Koons and Karoo, including a partnership announced in May with New York-based Heartbeat Health, a cardiology care company operating the nation’s largest decentralized platform. Karoo last year also launched the Kohere.ai platform aimed at augmenting the cardiac care system.

Founded by two African-American doctors in 2019, Zing was created to help address the inadequacies in the Medicare Advantage system.

“Karoo will be an important partner to ensure our members with cardiovascular disease receive the highest quality care leading to the best possible outcomes,” said Andrew Clifton, Zing CEO. “We are excited about this partnership and appreciate Karoo’s innovative approach to improving access and outcomes.”