When Tiny Changes Reap Enormous Results

Amer Alnajar and Faris Ghawi aimed to create a primary-care clinic that produced better results at lower costs. They ended up reframing American and landed at the medicine top of the Inc. 5000.

- Christine Lagorio-Chafkin

To understand the power of small, nonobvious changes, consider the Long Island patient who kept landing in the emergency room after failing to show up to her scheduled heart surgery. Vytalize Health, the No. 1 company on this year's Inc. 5000, sent a social worker to the patient's home and discovered two dozen pet parakeets. The patient had refused to leave the birds alone to go to her procedure. After Vytalize secured an animal-care organization to step in more than a year ago, the patient received the surgery, and she hasn't been hospitalized in more than a year.

"The thing a lot of folks forget about health care is that it's more than just biochemical reactions," says Vytalize cofounder and chief medical officer Amer Alnajar. "A lot of it is social or emotional."

Vytalize's breakthroughs in health care extend far beyond domesticated-bird detection. The company functions as a middleman between private practice and Medicare, helping doctors manage their patient relationships and improve health outcomes while saving the U.S. Medicare system money. When it works, patients live healthier lives, doctors are better compensated for their time, and taxpayers benefit too. Since 2020, Vytalize's revenue has expanded an astounding 90,779 percent, to the tune of $775 million in 2023 (or $1.53 billion, depending on who's counting; see sidebar, next page).