Included Health, a navigation and virtual care company, is launching into the insurance space with its alternative plan design for employers, the company announced last week.
The San Francisco-based company provides virtual and in-person care, navigation and care coordination and 24/7 support for clinical and administrative needs. The new alternative plan design offers a “copay-first plan,” meaning patients know what care is going to cost upfront.
The plan is centered around primary care. It starts with a well-being consult, which is an extended primary care appointment that allows members to ask questions, understand their benefits and form a relationship with the provider.
“It’s really centered on that clinician-patient relationship,” said Dr. Ami Parekh, chief health officer at Included Health, in an interview. “We want it to be trusted. We want it to be done early in the year, so that every single person has a care plan. They know what they can expect over the course of their year.”
In addition, patients receive 24/7 support through Included Health’s AI assistant named Dot, which can provide answers to questions and hand off patients to human support if needed. Patients can be connected to virtual and in-person options nationwide for a variety of needs, ranging from common care to complex care.
The payment model for the alternative plan design can be tailored to the employer, whether that’s a per-member-per-month fee or a value-based model, according to Parekh. Included Health’s plan can also be offered as an option alongside another traditional health plan.
The company has already launched its health plan with one employer, which the company declined to name. About 20,000 employees of this employer are enrolled in Included Health’s plan, Parekh said. In addition, early results show members often use the full 30-45 minutes of the well-being consults.
Included Health decided to launch the alternative plan design due to a need they were hearing from employers.
“Both members and employers are in a world that’s a little bit stuck,” Parekh said. “They have PPO products that are quite expensive, usually have a lot of services in them, but are hard to navigate. Then they have quite restrictive HMO products, and they actually are often both more affordable and easier to navigate, but you give up all your choice to be able to have that. … There has been, I would say, over the last two years, a desire by employers to have something that is ideally the best of both worlds, that gives members choice, but is easier to navigate.”
In fact, a recent survey from the Business Group on Health found that 17% of employers have adopted an alternative health plan, while 7% are adding it in 2026 and 36% are considering it in the near future. Several other companies also offer this, including Centivo and Imagine360. What sets Included Health apart is the size of its clinical team, according to Parekh. The company has 1,000 clinicians, including in primary care, behavioral health and urgent care.
To track the success of the alternative plan design over time, the company will measure engagement, patient adherence to their care plan and clinical outcomes, Parekh added.
Photo: Feodora Chiosea, Getty Images
