Marathon Health merged with Everside in 2024 to build a 750-site value-based care network

In February 2024, Indianapolis-based Marathon Health merged with Denver-based Everside Health to create a value-based primary care network serving more than three million patients across 41 states. The combined company partners with employers, unions, states and cities to run onsite and near-site clinics offering primary care, mental health and some telehealth services. CEO Jeff Wells projected the merger would let Marathon expand its footprint and projected cost savings of about 25% for the employer-sponsored health plans and unions it serves.

Over the following year, Wells focused expansion on two axes: geography, deepening Marathon's presence in Indiana, Ohio, the Carolinas, Florida, Colorado and New Jersey, and client type, doubling down on public-sector employers -- states, cities, counties and school systems -- who already made up over a third of clients. The company also migrated all of its health centers onto a single technology platform called Ignite, a project Wells said worked best when clinicians, medical assistants and providers were pulled into the rollout early rather than treated as end users of an IT project.

A year after the merger closed, Marathon had grown from 680 to more than 750 health centers and said it controlled roughly 25% of the U.S. advanced primary care market, with total cost of care running 25-30% below what Wells called 'normal healthcare delivery.'

Grew from 680 to 750+ health centers, unified onto one Ignite platform, captured roughly 25% of the advanced primary care market with costs 25-30% below normal care.

U.S. healthcare spends roughly double other developed countries per capita, and Wells estimated about 30% of utilization is unnecessary -- room for a value-based model to cut costs.

Combining Marathon and Everside gave deeper coverage in Indiana, Ohio, the Carolinas, Florida, Colorado and New Jersey, plus scale to court large public-sector clients like states and school systems.

Wells prioritized pulling clinicians, medical assistants, physicians and nurse practitioners into the technology rollout early, rather than treating the platform migration as an IT-only project.

A merger's payoff comes from integration speed -- putting frontline clinicians into the systems rollout early, not just combining member counts on paper.

One year in, Marathon controlled about 25% of the U.S. advanced primary care market and said total cost of care ran 25-30% below normal healthcare delivery. About 70% of primary care still happened in person, but virtual care volume was roughly 300% higher than before the pandemic. Wells said primary care as a field faced a workforce crisis, with providers pushed toward high patient volumes under fee-for-service, and framed Marathon's value-based model as the alternative.