Unlocking Direct-to-Employer Contracting Through Shared Analytics:
Ursa Health + IntoValue
Overview
IntoValue, a mission-driven organization focused on enabling direct partnerships between health systems and self-insured employers, needed a modern analytics foundation to support its go-to-market strategy. Their vision centered on empowering both sides of the contracting relationship with a shared, trusted view of performance, cost drivers, and opportunities for valuebased improvement.
As a rapidly growing organization working with large health systems and national leaders in employer contracting, IntoValue faced a critical challenge. They required a robust analytics platform capable of demonstrating credibility during business development, guiding contracting conversations, and providing employers with insights expressed in their own language. Ursa Health became their strategic partner by offering flexible technology, expert collaboration, and a readyto-demonstrate analytics environment tailored for employer-focused use cases.
The Challenge: Building Credibility in a Market That Requires Proof, Not Promises
IntoValue regularly engages with sophisticated stakeholders, including Fortune 50 employers and nationally recognized health systems, who expect datadriven demonstrations, not static slide presentations. To move quickly and stay focused on their core model, they sought a partner who would bring data, technology, and analytical rigor together in a way they could trust.
The IntoValue team required:
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• A dynamic, drillable demo environment grounded in realistic claims data
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• Analytics designed for the employer perspective, not Medicare or traditional value-based care
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• Rapid customization tailored to each prospect’s needs
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• Shared definitions and transparent logic to avoid misalignment during contracting
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• A partner with deep expertise who could support both strategy and execution
Why Ursa Health
From the start, IntoValue knew they would not build their own analytics platform. Their leadership team, experienced executives with long-standing relationships in the healthcare industry, evaluated multiple vendors and found Ursa to be the clear choice.
Their assessment surfaced several factors that made Ursa stand out:
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• A clinically and technically fluent team they could trust. Ursa brings a physician-led culture, a deep understanding of value-based care, and the technical expertise required to support health systems and employer groups at scale.
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• A platform built 90% in advance. Ursa delivered the core analytics out of the box, freeing IntoValue to focus on the final layer of customization instead of building an entire solution from scratch.
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• Straightforward modifications without heavy engineering. Ursa’s no-code platform allowed IntoValue’s team to make adjustments without advanced SQL or complex development cycles.
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• A neutral, transparent data environment. With Ursa as a shared space for analytics, IntoValue could act as a trusted intermediary, helping employers and providers align on definitions, attribution, and performance.
Bringing the Vision to Life: Building the Platform to Accelerate IntoValue’s Model
Through a rhythm of weekly working sessions and focused breakout discussions, Ursa Health’s expert professional services team and IntoValue’s clinical, product, and network design leaders convened to co-create the emerging platform.
1. Crafting a Realistic, Custom Demo Environment
To accelerate early iterations, Ursa supplied deidentified claims data and adapted it to reflect a commercial population:
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• Adjusted age bands• Added employer-relevant fields
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• Included relevant HR attributes
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• Incorporated workforce concepts (e.g., employee role categories)
This dataset formed the foundation of a fully navigable demo environment that was far more compelling than static charts and enabled IntoValue to present a dynamic, hands-on preview of their solution.
2. Developing a High-Impact Deep Dive: Low Back Pain
Recognizing that musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions drive significant employer spend, Ursa developed a structured analysis of low back pain as a model use case, including:
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• A detailed value set for low back pain–related diagnoses
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• Logic to identify employees with recent, repeated diagnoses
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• Comparative PMPM analysis showing a 3x cost differential
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• Utilization patterns such as ED visits, imaging, and opioid prescribing
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• Precise narrative framing of the implications for absenteeism and care design
This example demonstrated to prospects how IntoValue could uncover specific, actionable opportunities and design targeted programs that employers immediately understand and value.
3. Enabling Shared Definitions for Contracting and Performance
Contracting discussions often derail when parties use different definitions of key terms. Ursa’s platform became IntoValue’s “Switzerland,” a neutral source of truth where both sides could examine:
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• Eligible populations
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• Cost metrics
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• High-cost claimants
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• Attribution rules
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• Program outcomes
This transparency helps prevent misunderstandings and builds trust early in the relationship.
4. Supporting Future Employer Use Cases
Ursa and IntoValue also laid the groundwork for a broader analytics roadmap, exploring advanced analytics that will power future growth and program design, including:
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• Maternity spend analyses
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• Provider network performance
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• Referral pattern evaluation
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• Predictive modeling for high-cost claimants
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• Behavioral health insights
The successful collaboration has created an adaptable framework that is ready to evolve as IntoValue signs additional clients and scales.
Conclusion: A Launchpad for Innovation and Long-Term Success
IntoValue is preparing to scale into a national movement for direct-to-employer contracting by strengthening relationships between the organizations that deliver care and the employers who finance it.
With Ursa Health, they now have:
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• A flexible and scalable analytics platform
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• A data environment that speaks the employer’s language
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• A credible demonstration tool for business development
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• A clear model for designing programs rooted in actionable insights
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• A trusted partner ready to support each future client launch
Reflecting on the collaboration, Aaron Mock, Ursa Health’s Chief Innovation Officer, shared, “What we’ve been so excited about in partnering with IntoValue is the applicability of the tooling and logic we’ve honed for providers to a new domain in the employer space, where guiding clinical innovation that reduces cost is so important.”
As Marion Couch, IntoValue’s CEO, put it, “This partnership gives us the analytical backbone we need to reshape employer-provider relationships in a way that’s more transparent, more collaborative, and ultimately better for patients.”
Ursa Health is proud to support their mission and help bring a new level of clarity and confidence to direct-to-employer partnerships.
Read additional success stories from some of our other clients:
- Atlas Oncology Partners – we built precise scenario models and payor-specific logic to power full-risk, value-based oncology contracting with confidence.
- Matter Health – we unified claims, EHR, quality, and risk-adjustment data to drive high-touch care and performance gains for seniors in affordable housing.
- HarmonyCares – we maintained analytics integrity through a complex EMR migration while sustaining top-tier ACO performance across MSSP and ACO REACH.
- Altitude – we paired Ursa's data foundation with clinician activation tools to turn analytics into personalized, within-workflow actions that drive behavior change.
- Cityblock – we built a multi-source quality engine to move beyond compliance and focus care teams on closing real gaps for complex Medicaid and Medicare populations.