Auddia Inc. (NASDAQ: AUUD) today spotlighted Influence Healthcare, a healthtech company that leverages artificial intelligence and vertical integration to empower surgeons to lead value-based care (VBC) adoption across surgical specialties. The announcement comes as Auddia prepares to file its Form S-4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission later this week, a key step in its previously announced merger with Thramann Holdings LLC.
Influence Healthcare is designed as a third path between hospital employment and private-equity rollups, aiming to restore physician autonomy while reducing administrative waste. The company organizes surgeons into vertically integrated Value Based Enterprises (VBEs) that contract for bundled case-rate payments in high-spend specialties such as spine and total joint surgery. These VBEs are supported by advanced AI workflows that automate documentation, coding, episode validation, care-pathway coordination, staffing, supply chain, and logistics.
“Healthcare is about a physician and patient entering into a relationship to optimize delivery of the highest quality care,” said Jeff Thramann, M.D., CEO of Auddia and Founder of Influence Healthcare. “Only the physician has the knowledge, relationship with the patient, and clinical authority to make the many real-time decisions required to deliver the highest quality care at the lowest possible price. Influence Healthcare is aimed at leveraging AI to minimize administrative noise so that physicians and all the other healthcare professionals with hands on patients are empowered to deliver the highest value care.”
Influence Healthcare’s model is built on the premise that physicians deliver value and should lead the system. Unlike hospital employment, which often reduces physician autonomy, or private-equity rollups, which prioritize financial engineering, Influence Healthcare creates surgeon-led enterprises where surgeons retain governance authority, episode-based economics flow to clinicians, and facilities participate through aligned partnerships instead of ownership.
Post-merger, Influence Healthcare will leverage shared AI services from McCarthy Finney, the combined entity, to deploy agentic-AI workflows that automate clinical documentation, coding and billing preparation, episode-of-care validation, prior-authorization workflows, care-pathway adherence monitoring, and communication across the episode. These workflows are designed to eliminate administrative layers that have historically required multiple full-time staff per surgeon, contributing to burnout and inefficiency.
“AI should not replace physicians, it should replace the administrative friction that prevents physicians from practicing at the top of their license,” Dr. Thramann said. “Our platform gives surgeons the environment they need to deliver a more predictable, coordinated, efficient, and compassionate episode of care.”
Influence Healthcare’s vertically integrated specialty care model integrates surgeon leadership, facility partners (ASCs, hospitals, imaging centers), post-acute providers, AI-enabled care coordination, and episode-based financial alignment. This creates an end-to-end specialty care model without requiring surgeons to sell their practices or surrender governance.
The platform is designed to deliver lower total cost of care through coordinated episodes, improved outcomes via surgeon-led pathway design, reduced administrative overhead through AI automation, predictable economics for payers and employers, and restored autonomy and economic participation for surgeons. The company’s initial focus is on spine and total joint surgery, with plans to expand to additional specialties and markets.
For more information about Influence Healthcare, visit www.influencehealthcare.com.
Auddia entered into a definitive merger agreement on February 17, 2026, to combine with Thramann Holdings, which owns LT350, Influence Healthcare, and Voyex. Upon closing, Auddia will change its name to McCarthy Finney and trade under the ticker MCFN. McCarthy Finney is an AI holding company that will deliver AI and Web3 services to its portfolio companies. More details are available at www.auddia.com.
