Reema Health, a care navigation company for complex populations, has raised $19 million in a series B round from LRVHealth and Optum Ventures. The funding will be used to expand the company’s partnerships and services.
Reema aims to address the social and clinical needs of the most complex and marginalized patients, including those on Medicaid, Medicare and dual-eligibles. Powered by a digital platform combined with human community guides, many of whom work in person, Reema helps members schedule appointments, refill prescriptions and obtain referrals to social services.
In addition to its community guides, Reema also offers outpatient behavioral health therapy in a virtual setting. Psychiatric nurse practitioners prescribe medications as needed.
“We are often practicing in areas where making a hire is difficult. There’s a shortage of providers,” Justin Ley, Reema’s co-founder and CEO, told Fierce Healthcare in an exclusive advanced interview. Ley, who grew up on Medicaid, has “always had an affinity for this population,” he explained.
Over the past year, the company expanded from four to 14 markets. It plans to expand to three additional states in early 2026. In some states, Reema only offers community guides, while in others it also offers behavioral health services. It also plans to launch a maternal health offering, an idea that came at the behest of payer partners.
A point of pride for the company is its community guides. “They just act as a great head start for the trust,” Ley explained. He saw how harmful a lack of trust can be growing up. When offered help, his mother would often lie about not needing it because she didn’t trust outsiders. She was worried about possibly losing custody of her children, because she struggled to put food on the table.
Reema’s community guides help members feel comfortable enough to share vulnerable and crucial information about their lives. Kianah Pena, a Reema community guide based in South Carolina, formerly worked in the education field. She transitioned to healthcare because she wanted to help impact the entire household, not only her students. “I’ve come from working in communities of high need,” Pena told Fierce Healthcare.
Pena recently worked with a middle-aged woman who was struggling to stay on top of her blood pressure, diabetes and a newly diagnosed hearing impairment. “We developed a relationship just through very normal conversations of me checking in, seeing how her day was, checking in on last appointments,” Pena said of her work with Reema. Over months, that trust was built. Pena was able to connect the woman to transportation resources, local food pantries and a medication timer that reminds her to take her doses. This helped keep the woman healthier and out of the hospital, which she previously over-relied on.
“A key takeaway for me, at least, is that if she walked into her primary care doctor’s office … would they ask her all of these things to get to know her?” Pena said.
Over the past year, Reema has also started working with commercial payers, navigating those members to employer benefits and government programs, where applicable. Not everyone will qualify for Reema services. The company works with its payer partners to identify the neediest patients that would benefit the most from Reema’s support. “We put a lot of energy into making sure we’re working with the right people,” Ley said.
Reema has value-based contracts, typically in the form of shared savings and bundled payments. “We’re confident in our ability to reduce the cost of care,” Ley said.
In an analysis of Reema’s partnership with an undisclosed national payer partner by Havarti Risk, an actuarial firm, Reema was found to have established connections with 32% of previously unengaged members. It reduced ED visits by 22% and total cost of care by 23%. The analysis, with figures shared by Reema, tracked 3,000 members over 24 months, analyzing their healthcare utilization in the 12 months prior and after Reema’s involvement. This led to the plan generating a 3.2x return on investment in the first 12 months, according to figures shared by Reema.
Member engagement is a crucial driver of health plan performance, particularly for Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs). “Reema has proven it can make a significant impact by reaching and engaging people that health plans have previously considered unreachable,” Ellen Herlacher, partner at LRVHealth, said in a press release. “At a time where MCOs are under more financial and operating pressure than ever, Reema stands out as a trusted partner that can deliver real results."
Reema’s namesake was inspired by the Finnish word for team. “The reason we chose a Finnish word is because Finland does community health really well,” Ley noted. He cited Finland’s baby box program, which offers new moms essentials after birth and a place for babies to sleep to promote infant health, as an example.
Reema will be rolling out maternity services because health plans are struggling to serve mothers with mental health issues, including addiction.
“The leading cause of death for women in the perinatal journey is behavioral health challenges,” Ley said. “And they are desperate for us to enter the maternity space.”
Part of the problem is how difficult it can be to find behavioral healthcare for Medicaid members. Reema plans to offer community guides with a push toward behavioral health for the population and is also adding a family practice nurse practitioner to its roster of offerings.
“The goal here is not to replace an OB or care that they would get in person,” Ley said, “but it is to provide care to those women that aren’t getting that care or to supplement that care.”
Speaking about the expected fallout from forthcoming Medicaid cuts, Ley said even providers are now interested in working with Reema, which traditionally has worked with payers. Particularly providers with a heavy Medicaid patient mix may lose reimbursement dollars, but those patients will still seek care, Ley said. Reema is in talks with an East Coast health system that serves uninsured patients already but is bracing to provide more charity care. “It may be a harbinger of what’s to come, as they are struggling to serve patients that don’t have insurance,” Ley said. “Reema will be right in the middle, and stands ready to work with anyone that’s willing to help the member maintain their coverage.”