The Houston company that turned advance care planning - medicine's most avoided conversation - into a guided digital product.
Most Americans never write down how they want to be cared for if they become seriously ill. The forms are confusing, the moment never feels right, and the paperwork - advance directives, do-not-resuscitate orders, medical power of attorney - tends to surface only in a crisis, when families are left guessing. Koda Health was built to close that gap.
Founded in 2020 by Dr. Tatiana Fofanova, Dr. Desh Mohan, and Katelin Cherry, who met through the Texas Medical Center's Biodesign program, Koda treats advance care planning not as a legal errand but as a design problem. Its platform walks patients through their values and choices online, then generates legally valid documents and, in many cases, notarizes them virtually - at no cost to the patient.
The company sells to the organizations that carry the cost of serious illness: health systems, payers, and accountable care organizations. They deploy Koda to their patient populations, and Koda integrates directly into the electronic medical record so a completed plan is visible to clinicians at the bedside, not buried in a filing cabinet.
That combination - patient-friendly on one side, workflow-native on the other - has carried Koda past one million patients supported nationwide and, in October 2025, into an oversubscribed $7 million Series A. What follows is a look at what the company does, who it serves, and where it sits in a market that has talked about this problem for decades.
*Reported from a Houston Methodist ACO deployment. Figures reflect that population and are approximate.
An AI-enhanced, EMR-integrated platform guides patients through goals-of-care decisions and produces legally valid advance directives, DNR orders, and medical power-of-attorney documents.
Health systems, payers, ACOs, FQHCs, home health, and skilled nursing organizations deploy Koda to their patients. The tool is free to the patient; the buyer is the enterprise.
Care plans that are never documented - or never reach the clinician - lead to care that doesn't match what patients want. Koda makes the plan legible and honored where it matters.
Outcomes reported from a Houston Methodist ACO deployment. When patients' wishes are documented and followed, care tends to get both more humane and less costly.
Roughly $9,000 average savings per patient in that population. Figures are approximate and specific to the deployment.
Koda ensures patients' voices guide care in the moments that matter most.
The flagship platform. Digitally guides patients through planning, auto-generates compliant documents, and virtually notarizes them - meeting HL7 FHIR standards for EMR integration.
A serious-illness planning solution focused on kidney care, helping patients and providers navigate decisions for chronic and end-stage kidney disease.
In-house clinical staff provide virtual serious-illness support to high-risk patients - making sure completed plans are understood and actually followed.
Advance care planning has long been "important but hard to scale." Older approaches lean on paper forms and in-clinic conversations that rarely make it into the record. Koda's wager is to treat it as software: guided, integrated, free to the patient, and measurable. An NPS of 87 for one of medicine's hardest conversations is the headline result.
B2B enterprise SaaS. Health systems, payers, and ACOs pay; patients don't. The economics work in value-based and Medicare Advantage arrangements, where aligning care with patient wishes also reduces avoidable spending. Koda has reported 3x-4x revenue growth over the prior year.
Koda competes with serious-illness technology firms such as Vynca and Iris Healthcare, and with directive tools like MyDirectives - but its real competition is the status quo of paper forms and conversations that never happen. Its edge is deep EMR integration plus a human clinical layer.
The founding team pairs clinical science, medicine, and bioethics: CEO Dr. Tatiana Fofanova (clinical scientist), CMO Dr. Desh Mohan, and co-founder Katelin Cherry (bioethics). They incubated the company inside the Texas Medical Center, the world's largest medical complex.
Expanding advance care planning access for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.
An ACP partnership easing end-of-life care planning across value-based care.
Health-system partner deploying Koda's platform to its patients.
Provider network scaling goals-of-care conversations.
The deployment behind Koda's documented outcome data.
Extending access across select Federally Qualified Health Centers.
Fofanova, Mohan, and Cherry launch Koda through the Texas Medical Center Biodesign program.
Koda secures early funding, including a $256,000 award to test its product, and runs feasibility studies with older adults.
A deal with Cigna expands advance care planning for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.
Koda broadens into Kidney Action Planning and deepens EMR integrations.
New partnerships with Guidehealth and Medical Home Network widen reach into underserved communities.
Led by Evidenced, the round crosses one million patients supported nationwide.
Links open YouTube search results for the latest available interviews and demos.
Sources include kodahealthcare.com, Hospice News, HIT Consultant, Fierce Healthcare, Endpoints News, and InnovationMap. Outcome figures are approximate and reflect specific deployments.