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Blake sits down with Ian Koons, CEO and co-founder of Karoo Health, to unpack why cardiology is having its “VBC moment” and why most attempts to “do value” in specialty care fail the second they collide with real-world provider incentives.

Ian breaks down how Karoo went from planning de novo cardiac clinics to becoming a single source of truth for cardiology VBC. 

They also get into Karoo’s Humana partnership, rumors of a newly signed term sheet with a top-tier investor, why V28 is reshaping the payor landscape, and the death of siloed specialty models. 

Listen to hear why:

-Payers are under real performance pressure (hello, MA economics), and cardiology spend is now too big to ignore.

-“One-size-fits-all” specialty VBC is fantasy. Karoo partners with payers to architect market-specific cardiology contracts, then wraps physicians with the services, tech, and operational muscle to actually deliver savings without breaking the clinician experience.

-The next wave isn’t 70 point solutions; it’s collaborative specialty models with fewer contracts, clearer accountability, and a single source of truth.

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