Reimagining Operational Workflows for Health Systems, Payers, and Independent Provider Groups
Led by Deerfield Management, with a strategic investment from Northwell Health, the raise will support Ascertain’s vision for combining humans and AI to create the workforce of the future.
NEW YORK, April 22, 2025 — Ascertain, a healthcare technology company empowering care teams with AI, today announced $10 million in Series A funding in a financing round led by Deerfield Management with strategic participation from Northwell Health. The investment will accelerate the growth and expand access to Ascertain’s AI-powered solutions to enable higher quality patient care, faster care journeys, and more cost-efficient care delivery across the healthcare system.
Built for health systems, payers, and independent provider groups, Ascertain’s AI-powered case management solution automates time-consuming workflows, enabling case managers to focus more on improving the quality and efficiency of patient care. By handling administrative tasks such as documentation, prior authorizations, and compliance, Ascertain boosts efficiency and enables previously understaffed teams to operate more effectively. Case managers spend up to 60% of their time on manual administrative tasks, leaving less time for high-impact work such as care planning and managing high-risk patients. Meanwhile, there are over 100,000 open positions for case managers and administrative roles in the US, an acute labor shortage making it difficult for health systems to meet patient needs.
“Ascertain differentiates itself by using artificial intelligence to reimagine healthcare workflows from the ground up, rather than just making existing workflows more efficient,” said Julian Harris, M.D., Operating Partner, Healthcare Services at Deerfield Management. “The company is bringing partners greater efficiency, reduced friction, and new and improved ways to care for patients.”
Ascertain has been generating strong results for Northwell Health, in partnership with its centralized transitions-of-care administration team, by initiating a pilot to process authorizations, showcasing the power of Ascertain to enable nurses, case managers, social workers, and other staff to focus more of their time on patient care rather than administrative tasks.
“At a time when clinicians and team members are faced with increasing administrative burden and manual work, Ascertain’s ability to automate and streamline workflows allows for focus to be redirected towards patients and their families rather than tasks,” said Mark Solazzo, President of Strategic Initiatives and Chief Operating Officer at Northwell Health. “This collaboration has demonstrated that Ascertain’s technology effectively addresses the unique challenges of complex healthcare organizations. Building on the experience with Northwell, Ascertain is well positioned to partner with fellow health systems to drive greater efficiency and improve patient care.”
Northwell Health is a member of the Aegis Digital Consortium, a collaboration of 11 leading health systems to develop and scale AI-enabled technology solutions, such as Ascertain, to healthcare’s most pressing quality, cost, and equity challenges.
Ascertain CEO Mark Michalski, M.D., brings deep experience at the intersection of healthcare and technology from his time at Mass General Brigham, Amazon, Butterfly Network and Hyperfine Research. Under Mark’s leadership, the Ascertain team has refined and adapted their agentic AI solution to be flexible, easy to deploy, and integrated into existing systems and workflows. As the company continues to scale, Mark will continue with Ascertain while also becoming Chief Information Officer at Deerfield Management. Ascertain will move into Cure, Deerfield’s New York City headquarters.
“There’s a critical need to develop and implement AI solutions to improve operational efficiencies, ease the administrative burden on payers and providers, and facilitate information sharing,” said Michalski. “Collaborating with Deerfield, Northwell, and Aegis provides Ascertain access to a range of distribution channels, workflows, and data, which we believe will unlock new levels of efficiency for healthcare workers.”
In pursuing their mission to ensure that all patients receive the right care at the right time, case managers often grapple with fragmented processes and disconnected systems, while facing acute staffing shortages. Ascertain empowers case managers by providing a single interface to manage communications with clinical teams and payers, surfacing the key medical information they need for conversations with patients and their loved ones, and automating time consuming, manual tasks such as form-filling and navigating portals, all to ensure that patients receive the right care at the right time.
About Ascertain
Ascertain, a healthcare technology company empowering care teams with AI, helps health systems, payers, and independent provider groups streamline operations and reduce administrative burden. Customers can either deploy Ascertain Automate, an enterprise software platform that uses agentic AI to automate high-volume administrative workflows, or engage Ascertain’s tech-enabled services, outsourcing entire workflows to Ascertain’s team, which operates the software on their behalf. From prior authorization and eligibility checks to discharge planning and patient scheduling, Ascertain’s AI agents navigate complex systems, interpret unstructured data, and integrate across fragmented platforms — enabling faster throughput, lower costs, and more time for patient care. Ascertain was launched by Northwell Holdings, the for-profit investment arm of Northwell Health, and Aegis Ventures. To learn more, visit www.ascertain.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
About Deerfield Management
Deerfield is an investment management firm committed to advancing healthcare through investment, information, and philanthropy. The Firm works across the healthcare ecosystem to connect people, capital, ideas, and technology in bold, collaborative, and inclusive ways. For more information, please visit www.deerfield.com.
About Northwell Health
Northwell Health is New York State’s largest health care provider and private employer, with 21 hospitals, about 900 outpatient facilities and more than 12,000 affiliated physicians. We care for over two million people annually in the New York metro area and beyond, thanks to philanthropic support from our communities. Our 88,000+ employees – 18,900 nurses and 4,900 employed doctors, including members of Northwell Health Physician Partners – are working to change health care for the better. We’re making breakthroughs in medicine at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. We’re training the next generation of medical professionals at the visionary Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell and the Hofstra Northwell School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. For information on our more than 100 medical specialties, visit Northwell.edu and follow us @NorthwellHealth on Facebook, X, Instagram and LinkedIn.
About Aegis Ventures
Aegis Ventures is a next-generation venture studio that partners with entrepreneurs and healthcare industry leaders to originate, launch, and scale transformative companies. Aegis aims to build companies with the capacity for vast impact, with an initial focus on artificial intelligence and digital health. Within these verticals, Aegis targets the creation of companies that leverage technology to better optimize quality, access, and cost, focusing on innovations that promote seamless continuity of care, patient access, and better-informed clinical decision-making. To learn more about Aegis, visit our website and follow us on LinkedIn.
SOURCE Ascertain
