Lantern Secures $30M Strategic Investment from Morgan Health and Echo Health Ventures to Help Employers Reduce Costs and Improve Outcomes for Specialty Care

 Investment will further scale the nation's leading specialty care platform for surgery, infusions, and cancer care

DALLAS, March 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Lantern, the leading Specialty Care Platform serving 12 million people across the U.S., today announced a $30 million investment led by Morgan Health – a division of JPMorganChase dedicated to improving employer-sponsored healthcare – and Echo Health Ventures, a strategic investment platform investing on behalf of multiple Blues health plans. The growth investment will support Lantern's expansion across public and private employers and health plans, building on its strong, proven track record of lowering the cost of specialty care in the United States while improving outcomes and experiences.

"Specialty care is a primary driver of health care costs and contributes to the double-digit price escalation that most employers are experiencing. On top of that, consumers are increasingly frustrated with the lack of tools to navigate their conditions and are looking to their employers to ease this burden," said Dan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan Health. "Lantern's ability to improve outcomes and lower costs supports a healthier, more engaged workforce – and we're committed to accelerating their impact."

A New Approach to Specialty Care

At the center of Lantern's approach is its breakthrough "Network of Excellence" model. Rather than relying solely on traditional centers of excellence – which concentrate care within a limited number of facilities – Lantern negotiates directly with high-quality providers to create the most accessible, high-performing network in the country. Lantern's model works across the three largest cost centers in specialty care: surgery, cancer, and infusions, where site of care shifts combined with high-quality specialists demonstrate savings up to $20 per employee per month (PEPM) across Lantern's customers. Today, Lantern's clients include more than 1,000 of the largest public and private employers and unions in the U.S. Lantern's platform is designed to:

• Lower total medical spend: Lantern negotiates rates for surgery and other services that are up to 55% lower than average commercial reimbursement. This translates to 4% savings on overall healthcare costs (based on customer data) and more than $1 billion in cumulative savings across employers.
• Improve surgical outcomes: Lantern's Network of Excellence is curated through in-depth, clinically nuanced review, including 300+ appropriateness and outcome measures, to deliver significantly lower complication rates compared to national benchmarks, exceptional patient-reported functional improvements, and industry-leading, specialist-driven surgical avoidance rates.
• Reduce downstream costs: Fewer complications mean fewer follow-up procedures, hospitalizations, and avoidable long-term conditions, resulting in long-term cost containment.
• Deliver a better experience for members: Lantern boasts an 85 NPS score. Members benefit from a "white-glove" concierge service, including dedicated care advocates and nurse navigators.

"We are restoring basic market dynamics in specialty care to bend the healthcare cost curve," said John Zutter, CEO of Lantern. "We leverage robust cost analytics, clinical data on outcomes, appropriateness measures, and dynamic value-based contracting to get people to great care, close to home. Our partnership with Morgan Health and Echo Health Ventures will help accelerate our mission to transform access for millions more members in the moments that matter most." 

"The high-cost specialty care market has needed a solution that meaningfully reduces costs while maintaining quality and access, and Lantern has built exactly that," said Omair Ahmed, Principal at Echo Health Ventures. "Lantern's Network of Excellence model delivers savings and clinical outcomes that we believe are uniquely differentiated in the market, and Echo is excited to support Lantern as they bring that value to more employers, plans, and members nationwide."

Investment Follows Year of Exponential Growth
In 2025, Lantern added more than 100 new clients representing millions of new member lives, including a landmark deal with the North Carolina State Health Plan to manage surgical care for over 500,000 state employees and their families and help overcome a $1.4 billion projected deficit in the State Health Plan. Since 2025, Lantern has also added Thermo Fisher Scientific, Amtrak, Hillsborough County Schools, Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Health & Welfare Fund, and other national employers.

In January, Specialist Management Solutions became part of Lantern, adding 4 million lives to its membership and an AI-native member outreach platform capability, which assists in identifying members earlier in their healthcare journey to get them to the right care, faster. Lantern recently expanded cancer navigation capabilities in partnership with AccessHope to bring member access to expert review from National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers into community care. The company also recently launched a strategic partnership with Quantum Health to expand access to outcomes-based specialty care for employers nationwide. Lantern established partnerships with leading health plans to continue to make its services available to more employers, more easily, and with superior engagement and results.

About Lantern
For more information, visit lanterncare.com.

Media Contacts:
Claire Kerr
AOx3 for Lantern
[email protected] 

SOURCE Lantern