Tiger BufordYour Orthopedic Industry Expert (free today)

Bill Hunter discussed Business Model of Canary Medical

11 Jan 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:40

In this monologue, Bill Hunter reflects on Canary Medical’s early missteps in defining a clear value proposition and targeting the wrong customers—asking hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) to pay a premium for a data‑collection service that was not yet proven. He explains how the company pivoted to a shared‑savings model, positioning itself like a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) service that reduces downstream costs by monitoring patients. Hunter argues that by preventing costly complications in total knee arthroplasty (TKA) patients, Canary can save $10,000–$12,000 per case. He proposes that both payers (e.g., UnitedHealth) and hospitals share a portion of these avoided costs as compensation for Canary’s monitoring service, thereby integrating the product into the payer’s cost structure and creating a sustainable revenue stream.

Chapters

So, you know, let's, let's start with the payers. Initially, when we launched, we didn't really have a value proposition. It was like, you know, we're going to collect this data. We think someday it's going to be important. I can't tell you how. And you can imagine how well that went. So what we have been trying to do is to say, all right, look, how can we integrate into your cost structure. And I think one of the biggest learnings along the way was that we were asking the wrong people to pay for the product. So, so going to the ASC or going to the hospital and saying, hey, would you like to pay us a premium so that we can go save $10,000 for UnitedHealth? Is not, is not the world's smartest business model. And we're really more like a glucose monitoring company. We're really more like CGM where we're saying, look, You know, we don't make insulin, but we know that if we monitor your diabetics, you know, they don't, you know, they don't go to the ED, they don't do these things. We're saving you a bunch of money. And if we do that, you know, can you split some of the found money with us? So that has been how we've reached out to both hospitals now and to payers, which is to say, look, you're looking after your TKA patients is actually more expensive than creating them, you know, than operating on them. And a lot of that is cost that can be, you know, that can be avoided. And so if we're able to reduce your cost by $10,000, $12,000, would you be willing, you know, to provide us compensation, some level of that as compensation for doing that work?