Auddia Inc. (NASDAQ: AUUD) today highlighted Influence Healthcare, a healthtech company leveraging artificial intelligence and vertical integration to enable surgeons to lead value-based care (VBC) in high-spend specialties such as spine and total joint surgery. The company also announced its intention to file a Form S-4 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission later this week as the next step in its proposed merger with Thramann Holdings, LLC. The merger, announced on February 17, 2026, will combine Auddia with three operating companies—Influence Healthcare, LT350, and Voyex—under a new holding company named McCarthy Finney (ticker: MCFN).
Influence Healthcare is designed as a structural alternative to hospital employment and private-equity rollups, both of which often reduce physician autonomy and increase administrative overhead. Instead, the company organizes surgeons into vertically integrated Value Based Enterprises (VBEs) that contract for bundled case-rate payments. These VBEs are supported by advanced AI workflows that automate documentation, coding, episode validation, care-pathway coordination, staffing, supply chain, and logistics. According to Dr. Jeff Thramann, CEO of Auddia and founder of Influence Healthcare, the model restores physician leadership and minimizes corporate control over clinical practice. "Healthcare is about a physician and patient entering into a relationship to optimize delivery of the highest quality care. 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," Dr. Thramann said.
Influence Healthcare's AI-enabled workflows are designed to eliminate administrative burden that has historically required multiple full-time staff per surgeon, contributing to burnout and rising costs. Post-merger, the platform will leverage shared AI services from McCarthy Finney to deploy agentic AI for clinical documentation, coding, billing preparation, prior authorization, care-pathway adherence monitoring, and communication across episodes. The company emphasizes that AI is intended to replace administrative friction, not physicians. "AI should not replace physicians, it should replace the administrative friction that prevents physicians from practicing at the top of their license," Dr. Thramann stated.
The vertically integrated model integrates surgeon leadership, facility partners (ambulatory surgery centers, hospitals, imaging centers), post-acute providers, and AI-enabled care coordination into cohesive, end-to-end specialty care without requiring surgeons to sell their practices or surrender governance. Influence Healthcare's initial focus is on spine and total joint surgery, with plans to expand to additional specialties and markets through physician-led VBEs. The platform aims to deliver lower total cost of care, improved outcomes, reduced administrative overhead, predictable economics for payers and employers, and restored autonomy for surgeons.
For more information about Influence Healthcare, visit www.influencehealthcare.com. Additional details on the proposed merger and Auddia's other subsidiaries are available at www.auddia.com.
