The most consequential companies are rarely built around incremental improvements. They are built around a structural unlock, a moment when regulatory change, workforce dynamics, and technology converge to make a previously impossible business model not just viable, but inevitable. Corner Health is one of these companies. And, today, we are proud to announce that Oak HC/FT is leading a $25 million investment in the business, as they look to rebuild the operational foundation of primary care by empowering Nurse Practitioners (NPs) to own and operate their own primary care clinics.
An estimated 100 million Americans lack access to a primary care provider, not because the clinicians don't exist, but because independent practice has been made structurally untenable. Running an independent clinic has historically required up to four full-time administrative staff just to manage scheduling, billing, prior auth, and patient communications. This burden has pushed most providers into large health systems, trading clinical autonomy for back-office infrastructure.
That calculus is now shifting. Thirty states have granted Full Practice Authority, giving NPs the legal right to evaluate, diagnose, and treat patients without physician oversight. With the NP workforce projected to grow 45% over the next decade, a large and growing supply of clinicians have the training and legal authority to own their practices, but not the operational infrastructure to do so. Corner's waitlist of over 1,000 NPs is proof of how long that demand has gone unmet.
Corner built Cora to meet that moment. Cora is an AI-native practice operating system that automates the full spectrum of brick-and-mortar clinic operations, including insurance contracting, patient acquisition, scheduling, billing, lab orders, referrals and prior authorizations.
The result is a zero-admin staff model that fundamentally restructures the unit economics of primary care. Ninety percent of Corner clinics operate with no additional staff outside of the practicing NPs, a structural cost advantage that compresses overhead and redirects capital back to the clinician. Corner's model enables NPs to keep manageable hours in the office, while spending two to three times more time per visit than the industry standard.
That extra time is not just a patient experience amenity. It is a quality and safety variable. A study published in JAMA Health Forum analyzing more than 8 million primary care visits found that shorter visits are independently associated with higher rates of inappropriate antibiotic prescribing and unsafe co-prescribing of opioids and benzodiazepines. More time per patient is safer care.
Moreover, patients are loving their Corner experience. Corner clinics carry a 4.9-star average patient rating. Repeat visit rates are more than double the national average. Nearly 90% of patients report trusting their provider more than any other medical source. And, over 40% of visits now incorporate routine specialist services, such as pap smears, skin procedures, mental health screenings and joint care. All services that would require a separate referral in any traditional system. Corner is not just redistributing primary care. It is expanding the scope of what a single, trusted clinician-patient relationship can deliver.
What Corner has built for patients is compelling, but what it has built for clinicians is transformational. For most NPs, the choice has historically been binary. They must either accept employment in a large health system and surrender autonomy, or attempt independent practice and risk financial ruin. Corner's asset-light model dissolves that tradeoff. Clinicians on the Corner platform are taking home $30,000 to $80,000 more annually than their employed counterparts, while maintaining complete control over their schedules, their patient panels, and their clinical standards.
Exceptional outcomes require exceptional founders. Corner Health's leadership team brings precisely the combination of experience and conviction required to build a category-defining business. CEO and Co-Founder Lava Sunder brings a rare blend of strategic rigor and personal mission to the role. Her background spans McKinsey and Culdesac, but her commitment to this problem was shaped by years watching her mother build and run an independent cardiology practice. COO and Co-Founder Anne Gifford compliments that vision with deep expertise at the intersection of technology and operations. Prior to Corner Health, she led product and technology initiatives at Culdesac and brings that same product-first mindset to one to one of healthcares’ most operationally demanding challenges: building the technology, workflows and infrastructure that enable independent clinicians to run thriving practices.
Today, Corner has more than 70 provider-owned practices across Arizona and Washington, 35,000-plus patient visits, the fastest-growing primary care network in both markets, and a model that has not traded quality for speed. The single most common word in patient reviews across the Corner network is “listen.” In a healthcare landscape increasingly defined by asynchronous chat, AI-led triage, and algorithm-driven care, Corner is making a countercultural bet that the most powerful unit in primary care is still the relationship between a trusted clinician and a patient who feels truly heard.
We believe that bet is right. And we believe Corner has built the infrastructure, the incentives and the team to make it the dominant model for how primary care is delivered in this country. We are proud to partner with Lava, Anne, and the entire Corner Health team as they scale this platform nationally, and prove that the future of primary care is not less human. It is more.
