A virtual care and navigation company that serves employees of giants like Walmart and Amazon has laid off under 6% of its staff, Endpoints News has learned. Included Health co-founder and CEO Owen Tripp announced the recent cuts on Jan. 23 in a memo to staff, citing a need to accelerate growth and a commitment to achieving financial independence. Owen Tripp "Over the last several months, I've talked quite a bit about the transformational moment we're in now, our unwavering commitment to achieving financial independence, and what comes next," he said in the memo, which was reviewed by Endpoints. "This new structure will create narrower leadership, narrower projects and narrower budgets." The workforce reduction is necessary to help the company in "a cluttered and distracted competitive field," Tripp said. An Included spokesperson confirmed the cuts, but declined to comment Thursday on the number of people affected or answer specific questions about the memo. Included, which helps companies that pay for their own healthcare by helping employees navigate in-person and virtual care options, employed a staff of over 1,000 before the layoffs, according to two people familiar with the matter. LinkedIn shows that Included has somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 employees. One of Included's services is offering care coordination teams dedicated to helping Black and LGBTQ+ individuals vet and find the right providers. Employees who were part of those teams were affected by the cuts, according to two people familiar with the matter. Included declined to comment directly on the types of roles affected. "We remain committed to advancing DEIB and health equity nationwide," an Included spokesperson told Endpoints. "We continue to offer our communities' services, and members of these programs continue to receive support from culturally-concordant communities' care team members." The company has previously said it works with over 70 health plans and employers such as Salesforce, McDonald's and State Farm to care for millions of LGBTQ+ and Black individuals. The job reductions follow a similar round of cuts from 2022. In July of that year, Included Health let go of less than 6% of workers according to Fierce Healthcare. Included was born out of a merger between care navigation service Grand Rounds Health and virtual care provider Doctor On Demand in 2021. Several months later, the companies bought up and adopted the name of a smaller startup called Included Health, which helped LGBTQ+ patients navigate care options. The reductions are just the latest in digital health as well-capitalized startups race to preserve cash in a tough funding environment. Publicly-traded telehealth giant Teladoc and health tech unicorns Incredible Health, SonderMind and Noom all laid off workers last month, Endpoints has previously reported. (This story is from our new Health Tech newsletter. If you'd like to sign up, just click here.)
