In a cardiology practice, the advice may be perfectly sound: walk more, sleep better, take the medicine, eat differently. Then the patient goes home. The next appointment might be weeks away. Dinner is tonight. Nudj Health has built a company around that mismatch in timing.
In brief
- What it sells: virtual lifestyle medicine delivered by a clinical team, supported by connected devices and software.
- Who uses it: patients referred through physicians, health systems, employers and health plans.
- What stands out: the service works as an extension of a clinician, so behavioral health and everyday habits can sit inside an existing care plan.
- What the numbers say: Corewell Health reported improvements among more than 3,000 patients; a later before-and-after analysis reported roughly $3,000 in annual direct savings for a qualifying group.
A pacemaker told only half the story
Founder Yuri Sudhakar had already helped build Geneva Health Solutions, a business that gathered data from implanted cardiac devices. While helping patients connect those devices, his team heard what no pacemaker could transmit. People spoke about anxiety, depression and stress. These affected the routines that determine whether clinical advice survives contact with an ordinary day. The origin of Nudj was less a revelation about gadgets than a correction to their field of view.
Sudhakar left his previous company and launched Nudj in 2021. The idea was to give doctors something more useful than another instruction sheet: a team that could follow the patient into the long interval between visits. When the pandemic made telehealth familiar, the company also saw more clearly how mental health could obstruct behavior change. Its response was to place coaching and behavioral care in the same conversation as physical health.
Six small words with expensive consequences
Nudj organizes care around nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, social support and risky behaviors such as smoking and alcohol use. A physician can refer a patient; Nudj’s dietitians, behavioral health clinicians, social workers, exercise specialists and coaches then work with that patient virtually. Home blood pressure cuffs, scales and other connected devices supply readings. The software helps coordinate contact, documentation and outcome tracking. The clinician remains in the loop.
The existing physician identifies the need and refers the patient.
Coaches and clinicians address habits, symptoms and barriers over time.
Remote measures and clinical notes inform the care team’s next move.
That structure is the commercial distinction. Nudj does not ask a patient to find a fresh doctor, and it does not ask a cardiology practice to hire an entire lifestyle medicine department. It supplies that department as a partner. The model has appeal for providers who need the extra capacity and for payers or employers concerned with the costly accumulation of chronic illness. Patients get help acting on a plan, rather than another plan to file away.
There is a practical limit. Care still depends on the patient taking part, on a referring organization making space for the workflow, and on coverage or a contract paying for the work. In a 2022 interview, Sudhakar described one provider arrangement with no upfront charge to physicians: practices billed eligible services and paid Nudj after reimbursement. That was an account of the early model, not a published price list for every current customer. Nudj now also offers revenue cycle management for practices adopting lifestyle medicine.
The Michigan test
The company’s most substantial public evidence comes from Corewell Health, a Michigan health system that began working with Nudj in 2023. In September 2025, Corewell reported improvements among more than 3,000 patients who used the virtual lifestyle medicine service. The reported changes included lower depression and anxiety scores, average weight loss and more daily exercise. A November release added an analysis of utilization before and after program completion.
Corewell partnership / reported 2025 outcomes
The savings figure applies to patients who participated for more than four months. It came from a before-and-after analysis, so it does not isolate the program’s effect from every other factor.
The last figure is the one a hospital executive will circle. Nudj and Corewell reported about $3,000 in direct cost savings per patient over one year among people who stayed in the program more than four months. Their release also reported fewer encounters for several conditions. But a before-and-after comparison of program completers cannot prove how much of the change Nudj alone caused. It is evidence that this arrangement deserves attention, not permission to promise the same savings to every hospital.
“By supporting patients not just in the clinic, but in that critical in-between time while they are home, we've helped thousands of people achieve real, sustainable change.”Yuri Sudhakar, on the Corewell partnership
The service has begun to leave the screen
Nudj’s later products follow the same logic into more specific situations. Nudj Cardiac Complete, launched with Ornish Lifestyle Medicine by Sharecare in 2024, offers virtual intensive cardiac rehabilitation and collaborative care for eligible patients. The point is simple: a rehabilitation program is of little use to a person who cannot reliably get to it.
In 2025, a partnership with Umoja Health added medically tailored meals, groceries, produce prescriptions and nutrition education. It answers a rather pointed question for any nutrition program: what if the patient understands the advice but cannot obtain the food? The new offer joins access to ingredients with clinical and behavioral support. Nudj has also earned a lifestyle medicine treatment-program certification from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and approval for its health-coach training program.
Those moves reveal where Nudj sits in the market. It competes with the option to build a clinical team in-house, with conventional rehabilitation, and with digital chronic-care services. It is strongest when a partner already has patient trust and clinical responsibility but lacks the staff and systems to work on behavior between visits. Its product is a combination of people, workflow and measurement. The software matters. So does the person who notices that a patient stopped answering calls.
What a clinic could borrow tomorrow
The copyable lesson is smaller than the company. Give a care plan an owner after the patient walks out. Ask which daily obstacle is most likely to defeat it. Make a way for the answer to reach the clinician before the next appointment. Measure something the patient and the clinic both understand. Nudj has packaged those steps into a national business; a local practice can still learn from the sequence.
The next proof will be less photogenic than a new app screen: whether the reported improvements persist across different partners, reimbursement arrangements and patient populations. For now, Nudj’s wager is clear. The calendar says the medical visit is an event. Chronic disease behaves as though it is a routine. The company chose to work on the routine.