ModMed, a software and services provider for specialty medical practices, announced on April 20, 2026 that it had acquired Bonsai Health, a startup that uses AI agents to bring overdue patients back into the doctor's office. ModMed is backed by private equity firm Clearlake Capital Group. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Bonsai's software scans patient records for missed or overdue care, contacts those patients by text message and email, and books them into open appointment slots without a staff member having to step in. ModMed said it would build on Bonsai's existing traction and take the product to the nearly 50,000 providers that use its software.
Bonsai is led by its co-founders, Travis Schneider and Luke Kervin, who previously co-founded PatientPop. ModMed did not say whether Bonsai would keep its own brand, but described the deal as bringing the Bonsai team into the company. Law firm Sidley Austin advised ModMed on the transaction.
What Bonsai Health built
Bonsai describes itself as an agentic AI patient engagement platform. Rather than waiting for patients to call, the system looks for gaps on two sides: care a patient should have received but did not, and openings in a provider's calendar. It then runs the outreach and self-scheduling flow automatically over SMS and email.
According to HLTH's coverage, the system also looks at no-shows and cancellations as signs that a patient has dropped out of care. The aim for practices is to fill schedules and reactivate lapsed patients while reducing the time front-desk staff spend on phone calls and reminders.
“Joining the ModMed family provides us with the scale and resources of an industry leader to bring our AI technology to nearly 50,000 providers.”
Why ModMed is buying
ModMed already sells a patient communication product built on Klara, which it describes as a central hub where staff manage conversations and outreach. The company said Bonsai adds a separate, proactive AI layer on top of that hub, focused on patient outcomes, staff workload and empty slots in the schedule.
The purchase is part of what ModMed calls its AI-Powered Practice strategy. Co-founder and co-CEO Dan Cane said Bonsai's approach to patient reactivation fit that vision and that combining the two teams would let the company deliver more value to the practices it serves.
Cane also said Bonsai was built around a simple mission: making sure the right care happens at the right time. ModMed presented the two products as complementary, with Klara handling conversations that staff run and Bonsai running outreach that does not need a person to start it.
ModMed's software is used across specialties including dermatology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, gastroenterology and ENT. HLTH noted that ModMed plans to deploy Bonsai's technology across that specialty network.
The founders and the funding
Schneider and Kervin lead Bonsai as co-CEOs. Before Bonsai, the pair co-founded PatientPop, a practice growth platform for healthcare providers, which gave them years of experience in patient engagement software.
Bonsai raised a $7 million seed round announced in September 2025, led by Bonfire Ventures and Wonder Ventures, with Village Global and several angel investors also taking part, according to StartupIntros. No other rounds have been reported, and the company did not disclose its headcount or revenue.
Kervin said joining ModMed gives Bonsai the scale and resources to reach nearly 50,000 providers, and that ModMed's clinical datasets and infrastructure would let the team develop its agentic AI faster.
A busy market for AI in the front office
The deal adds to a wave of software companies buying AI tools that automate administrative work in medical practices, where scheduling, reminders and patient recalls still take up much of the front office's day. Clearlake partner Paul Huber said in the announcement that agentic AI is moving healthcare front offices from reactive, staff-driven workflows to automated patient engagement at scale. He called Bonsai a leading example of where the technology is heading and said Clearlake would keep building ModMed into an AI platform for specialty medicine.
For Bonsai's existing customers, ModMed did not announce changes to pricing or contracts. For ModMed's users, the company said the goal is to make Bonsai's automated outreach available alongside the Klara communication tools they already use.
