Client Overview
co-op.care is a worker-owned home care cooperative that pays W-2 caregivers with full benefits and equity, funded through HSA/FSA eligibility and the CMS ACCESS Model. Founded by Blaine Warkentine, MD, an orthopedic surgeon and health tech executive who scaled BrainLAB's orthopedic vertical to $250M. Led clinically by Josh Emdur, DO, a 50-state licensed hospitalist and clinical AI faculty at Automate Clinic.
The Challenge
Two co-op.care platforms needed HIPAA-ready infrastructure, automated audit logging, and CMS-ready data pipelines before a hard regulatory deadline of April 1, 2026. None of it existed.
Patient-reported outcomes were collected via paper forms and staff phone calls. Industry completion rates average below 30 percent. CMS reconciliation payments are withheld without documented outcome improvement, making collection a direct revenue dependency.
Every enrolled patient required manual follow-up. There was no mechanism to run a growing patient panel without growing headcount proportionally.
Working with Cohesion is like having a specialized surgical team for your software. Most [automation] shops speak code. Cohesion speaks value-based care.
The Solution
Cohesion Labs automated the critical compliance and patient engagement workflows in six weeks.
For co-op.care: automated HIPAA audit logging, automated compliance checks on every software update, and payment processing configured for HSA/FSA eligibility — live in two weeks.
For SurgeonValue: end-to-end PROM automation — patient enrollment triggers an SMS within 60 seconds, surveys deliver sequentially on the CMS ACCESS cadence, responses score automatically, and results write to a structured data store that can feed any EHR or CMS registry without manual reformatting. Zero staff involvement per enrolled patient.
Results
2 weeks to HIPAA-ready infrastructure
8 critical compliance workflows automated
Zero staff hours per enrolled patient for outcome collection
100% automated PROM delivery
HITL compliance built-in from day 1
Business Impact
Scalable Without Headcount
The platform can grow its patient panel without adding staff for each new enrollment. Outcome collection, scoring, and reporting run automatically — capacity scales with the system, not the payroll.
HSA/FSA Revenue Unlocked
Payment processing configured for HSA/FSA eligibility, removing a common enrollment barrier.
Staff Elevated, Not Expanded
Coordinators can focus on managing exceptions instead of chasing surveys and manual data entry. The human handles what the automation flags.
In healthcare, speed is usually the enemy of safety — but Cohesion finds the middle ground. Enterprise-grade quality at AI-era speed.