Oakland, CA, April 14, 2026 — Chronic disease doesn't take weekends. It doesn't wait for a fifteen-minute follow-up in six months. It shows up every day, in the blood pressure reading, the skipped medication, the 2 a.m. worry.
Meanwhile, American healthcare runs on 9-5 office visits. The rest of the week gets almost no attention. Ramona Health was built to cover it.
Ramona was founded last year on a simple idea: that AI could deliver the kind of daily, continuous care a chronic condition actually requires. The company has now been accepted into the CMS Innovation Center's ACCESS Model across all four clinical tracks: early cardio-kidney-metabolic, cardio-kidney-metabolic, musculoskeletal pain, and behavioral health. Only a small number of the 150-plus organizations announced on April 13 were accepted in all four.
ACCESS is Medicare's bet that paying for outcomes can improve how chronic disease is managed. The model launches July 5, 2026, and will be available to Original Medicare beneficiaries across all fifty states and the District of Columbia.
Ramona's product is an AI Care Companion. It checks in every day. It remembers what the patient's doctor said last month. It notices when a blood pressure trend quietly drifts the wrong way. It coaches through a hard week without judgment, at 6 a.m. or at 10 p.m. When something needs a human, it hands off cleanly, with context.
Ramona's clinical protocols are written by Dr. Jessica Knox, the company's Medical Director. The AI follows them. When a case falls outside them, she and her clinicians step in.
"The most powerful force shaping patients' health isn’t their time in a doctor’s office—it‘s the 8,759 hours between appointments," said Dr. Knox. "That's why we created Ramona—to be there for the daily decisions that matter most."
"Most of the companies joining ACCESS are retrofitting their products for this moment," said Charles Baakel, Ramona Health's founder and CEO. "We built ours for it. A year ago there was no ACCESS Model, but we were building Ramona the same way, because the gap it fills has existed for decades. CMS just named it out loud."
Ramona will cover any cost-sharing for ACCESS services. Patients keep their current doctors, their current Medicare coverage, and every other benefit they already have. Ramona adds a layer of daily support to the care they already receive.
Medicare beneficiaries can join the waitlist today at hiramona.com. Enrollment opens when ACCESS launches this summer.
About the ACCESS Model
ACCESS (Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions) is a voluntary model run by the CMS Innovation Center. It tests whether outcomes-adjusted payment can reduce Medicare spending while improving care for the roughly two-thirds of beneficiaries living with chronic conditions. Private payers representing 165 million members across Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and commercial coverage have committed to aligning with the model. More at innovation.cms.gov/innovation-models/access.
About Ramona Health
Ramona Health is an AI-native chronic care company. Its AI Care Companion delivers daily, clinician-supervised support (medication tracking, biometric monitoring, behavioral health, lifestyle coaching) to Medicare beneficiaries with chronic conditions. Ramona was accepted into all four clinical tracks of the CMS ACCESS Model and will be available nationwide on July 5, 2026. hiramona.com.
The statements in this release are those of Ramona Health and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.