Kaia Health co-founder talks Luna Physical Therapy partnership and how it will transform MSK care

The two companies announced they were joining forces last week

Digital care is on the rise, and that means both telemedicine as well as in-home care. The most successful companies will probably the ones that offer their users multiple ways to access care.

Kaia, a provider of virtual care, using machine learning to give patients personalized care that they can access on their own devices, took a step in that direction last week when it announced a partnership with Luna On-Demand Physical Therapy, which sends physical therapists into the patient's home. 

In the announcement, Kaia Health noted that, thanks to the partnership between these two companies in the musculoskeletal care space, Kaia Health will now be the only digital MSK pain solution to provide digital therapy along with in-person, at-home care.

Jonas Duss, co-founder and US CEO of Kaia Health spoke to Vator about the acquisition, why Luna was a good partner for the company, and what the ultimate goal is of joining with Luna. 

VatorNews: What does Luna do and what problem are they solving?

Jonas Duss: Luna provides on-demand physical therapy, delivered to a patient’s home or workplace. Luna essentially solves the problem of access to care for the subset of patients who require in-person physical therapy but are unable to—or find it very difficult to—schedule and access therapy in a traditional brick-and-mortar clinic. This is especially important with so many people working from home.

VN: What made you feel like they were a good partner for Kaia?

JD: Luna felt like a great partnership because of their network of more than 1,200 physical therapists nationwide who were already in network with most health plans and able to serve Kaia Health patients on demand. We also appreciated Luna’s heavy emphasis on patient outcomes, and they aligned well with our philosophy of making effective therapy accessible to patients anywhere and at any time.

VN: What does each side bring to the other? What was Luna lacking that they needed Kaia for, and vice versa?

JD: Current Luna users gain access to Kaia Health’s advanced digital MSK offering, including it’s continuum of integrated care. Furthemore, Luna is able to offer its services to a much wider population. Luna uniquely enables Kaia Health to bridge a patient who is getting virtual care through our platform to in-person care, with maximum accessibility.   

VN: How many members are currently on your platform? Do you anticipate that this partnership will bring more? If so, how many users do you think you'll have in a year?

JD: To date, more than 450,000 users have enrolled in our platform. Within a year, we expect to have well beyond 500,000 enrolled members. 

VN: How has Kaia been growing since your last funding round? Have you seen any increase in usage or activity?

JD: Since our $75 million Series C funding round in April 2021, Kaia Health has enrolled more than 50,000 additional users.

VN: What is your ultimate goal with this partnership?

JD: Better serving our users and clients by pushing the boundaries of innovation to transform access to MSK healthcare. 

VN: What's next for Kaia? Where do you want to take the company going forward?

JD: Continuing to expand access to MSK health care for our clients through strategic partnerships while building our integrated care pathway to meet the needs of more users.