Beyond Navigation: Thyme Care Ready for Heavy Lifts to Make Value-Based Care Work

When it was founded in July 2020, Thyme Care’s early focus in cancer care was patient navigation. By the fall of 2023, the company was serving more than 3000 patients¹ and had research to show that its technology-driven navigation and support services brought a $594 cost reduction per patient per month, compared with a control group.²

That was at the time of Thyme Care’s $60 million capital raise¹; by July 2024, a new $95 million round of financing and a new investor, Concord Health Partners,³ publicly signaled that Thyme Care has much bigger things in mind. The company plans to expand things it has been working on, such as reducing pharmacy waste⁴ and reducing administrative burdens with data analytics.⁵ It is looking to improve the referral processes among oncology practices, primary care groups, and health plans. Thyme Care’s model differs from others in that the company deeply integrates itself into its partner practices to find efficiencies—and does so while assuming 2-sided risk,³ meaning that creating better patient experience, quality, and waste reduction provides the payoff.

It also attracts investors, including Concord. “We’ve been intentional about trying to find the right people to partner with,” Bobby Green, MD, an oncologist who is cofounder, president, and chief medical officer at Thyme Care, said in an interview. Each of the company’s investors has offered a balance of support while challenging the start-up, he said, and Concord “was just a really nice addition.”

“Traditionally, their focus is identifying and supporting health care companies that are building solutions that address the things we’re focused on—affordability, quality, access to care. And so, I think in many ways, it was real alignment along the vision,” Green said. “They also have a lot of strategic relationships throughout the ecosystem and potential partners for us in the future.”

Providers in oncology are increasingly under pressure to operate in risk-based payment models, whether a commercial plan or Medicare’s Enhancing Oncology Model (EOM), which recently made changes to attract more providers.⁶

Service delivery is offered through its Thyme Care Oncology Partnerships (TCOP), described as “operating as an extension of the practice.”³ These partnerships allow Thyme Care to perform some of the most challenging tasks to make value-based care work: the company provides the virtual navigation as well as data and analytics services to reduce administrative burden. A year ago, the company unveiled Thyme Box, a value-based oncology care management platform that sorts data from payers, electronic health records, and other sources to recommend personalized interventions. Thyme Box is powered by a mechanism that can allow risk-bearing entities to shift from fee-for-service to value-based care.⁵

More than 800 oncologists were enrolled in these partnerships³ when Thyme Care announced the hiring of Lalan Wilfong, MD, one of the best-known leaders in value-based care, who has experience in Medicare’s Oncology Care Model (OCM) and the current EOM.