Iris Plans

High-Level Overview

Iris Plans is a telehealth platform specializing in Advance Care Planning (ACP) for individuals with serious medical conditions, offering trained facilitators via phone or video to guide families through personalized care planning, document creation, and distribution.[1][2][4][5] It serves patients, families, caregivers, and clinicians nationwide through partnerships with payers and value-based healthcare providers, addressing unmet needs in end-of-life and chronic illness decision-making to improve quality of life, reduce unnecessary healthcare costs (estimated at $210 billion annually), and enable better-aligned care.[2][3][4][5] Founded in 2015 in Austin, Texas, the company raised $10.05M before being acquired by Aledade in January 2022, now operating as Iris powered by Aledade with innovations like the Empower self-guided platform.[1][2]

Origin Story

Iris Plans was founded in 2015 in Austin, Texas, by Steve Wardle (CEO), a seasoned finance leader with experience in banking turnarounds and fund management; Andrew Chen (CTO), a technology innovator in AI for healthcare and SaaS; and Stephen Bekanich, MD (Chief Medical Officer), an entrepreneurial physician who directed palliative care programs and led a large ACO saving over $15M.[3][4] The idea emerged from personal experiences—Bekanich witnessed his grandparents' inadequate end-of-life care, mirroring Wardle's observations—highlighting workforce shortages in palliative care and the need for scalable ACP amid rising serious illnesses affecting 8 million Americans.[4] Early traction came via telehealth partnerships, focusing on high-demand West Coast value-based care markets, leading to product expansions like disease-specific planning and the 2021 Empower platform launch.[2][4]

Core Differentiators

Iris Plans stands out in healthcare planning through a human-centered telehealth model combining technology, expert facilitation, and comprehensive outputs:

• Tech-Enabled Accessibility: Video/phone platform for anytime, anywhere sessions customized to patients' conditions, producing state-specific advance directives and personalized supplemental documents in the patient's words.[1][4][5][6]
• Facilitator Expertise: Specially trained professionals deliver disease-specific education, scenario-based decision-making, and inclusive discussions with families/clinicians, reducing clinician burden.[2][4][5]
• Full Lifecycle Support: Covers discussions, document creation/distribution to loved ones/doctors/points-of-care, and implementation tracking for definitive, actionable plans.[1][5]
• Cost and Outcome Impact: Targets unnecessary care reduction while improving patient control, caregiver relief, and value-based payer efficiencies; post-acquisition integration with Aledade enhances scalability.[2][3][4]

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Iris Plans rides the value-based care wave, shifting from fee-for-service models amid rising chronic illness prevalence and $210B in avoidable end-of-life spending, amplified by telehealth adoption post-COVID.[2][3][4] Timing aligns with payer demand for ACP solutions amid workforce shortages in palliative care, positioning it strongly in a market with 8M urgent needs and West Coast leadership in risk-based contracts.[4] It influences the ecosystem by enabling shared decision-making, lowering costs for health plans/ACOs, and complementing tools like WiserCare or Cake, now amplified via Aledade's primary care network for broader implementation.[1][5]

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Post-2022 Aledade acquisition, Iris Plans will likely expand its Empower platform and ACP integrations into more payer/provider networks, capitalizing on AI-driven personalization and regulatory pushes for value-based care.[2][5] Trends like aging populations, telehealth normalization, and cost-containment pressures will fuel growth, evolving its role from niche facilitator to ecosystem standard for patient-centered planning. This ties back to its core mission: making compassionate, tech-enabled ACP accessible to transform serious illness experiences.