Tennr

Tennr is solving the black hole problem in healthcare by leveraging models to digitize the flow of paperwork between healthcare providers.

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Today, when you go to your doctor and need to be referred to a specialist (e.g., for sleep apnea), your doctor sends a fax (yes, in 2024, 90% of provider-provider communication is a 1980s fax). These are often converted into 20+ page PDFs, with handwritten (doctor’s handwriting!) notes, in thousands of different formats. The problem is so complex that a person has to read it, type it up, and manually enter your information. Tennr built RaeLM™ (7B:trained on 3M+ documents) to read these docs, talk to your doc to ensure nothing is missed, and text you to help schedule your appointment so you can get better, faster.

High-Level Overview

Tennr is a healthcare AI software company that builds an advanced workflow automation platform designed to streamline patient referral processes and reduce administrative burdens in healthcare operations. Its platform uses a proprietary vision-language AI model, RaeLM™, to interpret unstructured medical documents against complex payer criteria, automating tasks such as patient referral tracking, eligibility verification, prior authorization, and claims management. Tennr primarily serves specialty pharmacies, home infusion care providers, and healthcare organizations, aiming to reduce claim denials, improve documentation accuracy, and enhance patient experiences by ensuring referrals do not fall through the cracks. The company has demonstrated strong growth momentum, processing over 10 million documents monthly and recently raising $101 million in a Series C round, signaling rapid expansion and investor confidence[1][2][3].

Origin Story

Founded in 2021 by Stanford engineering alumni Trey Holterman, Tyler Johnson, and Diego Baugh, Tennr emerged from a personal connection to healthcare inefficiencies—Holterman’s mother, a family medicine clinician, described patient referrals as sending patients into a "black hole." Motivated to solve this pervasive problem, the founders focused on increasing completed referrals, reducing preventable denials, and improving operational efficiency for receiving providers. Early traction came from building a system that works with existing healthcare workflows (including fax-based communication), avoiding disruption to providers’ established processes. This pragmatic approach, combined with deep AI expertise, allowed Tennr to scale quickly and attract significant funding and strategic partnerships[1][4][7][8].

Core Differentiators

• Proprietary AI Model (RaeLM™): Tennr’s vision-language model is uniquely trained on over 100 million anonymized healthcare documents and thousands of payer criteria sets, enabling it to accurately interpret messy, unstructured medical records including handwritten notes and checkboxes[4].
• Workflow Automation: Automates the entire referral lifecycle—from document ingestion and eligibility checks to prior authorization and communication coordination—reducing manual data entry and errors[1][4][5].
• Integration with Existing Systems: Tennr meets providers where they are, integrating with electronic health records (EHRs) and allowing referrers to continue using fax and other legacy communication methods without disruption[2][8].
• Scalable Platform: Processes over 10 million documents monthly and supports hundreds of healthcare organizations, demonstrating robustness and scalability[2].
• Patient Engagement Focus: Beyond automation, Tennr is developing tools to guide patients through their care journeys, improving transparency and outcomes[4].

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Tennr rides the wave of AI-driven automation in healthcare administration, addressing a critical bottleneck in the U.S. healthcare system’s referral process—a notoriously fragmented and error-prone workflow that leads to delays, denials, and lost patients. The timing is favorable due to increasing regulatory pressure to reduce claim denials and improve patient outcomes, alongside growing adoption of AI and automation technologies in healthcare. Tennr’s approach of integrating with existing workflows rather than forcing disruptive changes aligns with provider realities, positioning it as a key enabler of digital transformation in healthcare operations. Its work influences the broader ecosystem by setting new standards for operational efficiency, patient transparency, and payer-provider coordination[1][2][3][4][8].

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Looking ahead, Tennr is poised to expand its product suite further into patient experience management and authorization review, while deepening its network capabilities to provide visibility across primary care, specialists, and patients. Trends such as increased AI adoption, regulatory reforms, and demand for seamless patient journeys will shape its growth trajectory. If Tennr continues to leverage its proprietary AI and expand its ecosystem, it could become a dominant platform in healthcare operations, significantly reducing administrative waste and improving care coordination. Its mission to eliminate the "black hole" in patient referrals remains a compelling vision that ties back to its founding purpose and growth strategy[3][4].