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H1 Acquires Defacto Health to Strengthen Provider Network Intelligence
Acquisition brings provider-network data and experienced healthcare data leaders to H1
NEW YORK, Sept. 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- H1, the AI-powered platform that connects the world to the right doctors, today announced it has acquired Defacto Health, a healthcare data company specializing in provider network intelligence. Defacto maintains data on payer networks, healthcare providers, and the insurance plans providers accept, helping health plans assess directory accuracy, isolate error clusters, and benchmark their networks.
The acquisition brings a longtime H1 data partner into the company and strengthens H1’s investment in the connected, high-quality healthcare data customers use to understand providers, networks, and access to care. Defacto will operate as part of H1, with co-founders Ron Urwongse and Tarun J. Theogaraj joining H1 to continue leading the work.
“Health plans are under continued pressure to maintain accurate provider directories while managing information that changes constantly across providers, facilities, plans, and networks,” said Ariel Katz, co-founder and CEO of H1. “We have worked with Defacto and know firsthand the value of its data and the expertise of its team. Bringing Defacto into H1 continues to strengthen the data foundation behind our platform and helps us continue to provide health plans and their industry partners with the tools and intelligence they need to understand their networks, identify inaccuracies, and make better-informed decisions.”
Mr. Urwongse and Mr. Theogaraj bring longstanding experience in provider data and interoperability. Before founding Defacto, both led provider-data work at CAQH. Urwongse managed provider-data and interoperability solutions, while Theogaraj managed provider-data solutions and later led product work for CAQH’s flagship provider-data platform.
“Provider and payer data is complex, dynamic, and foundational to so many healthcare decisions,” said Ron Urwongse, co-founder of Defacto Health. “We built Defacto to make provider network information more accurate, accessible, and useful. Joining H1 gives our team the opportunity to invest further in that work and apply it within a broader healthcare intelligence platform that helps organizations connect with the right doctors.”
By bringing Defacto’s provider-network expertise together with H1’s healthcare data, technology, and AI, H1 will continue building a more connected view of the healthcare ecosystem, strengthening the intelligence that helps organizations identify, understand and connect to advance the vision of connecting the world to the right doctors.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
About H1
H1 is an AI-powered platform that helps identify and engage the right doctors for critical workflows across pharma, health plan, health system, and technology companies. At the core of the platform is H1’s Doctor Graph—a structured representation of physician identity, expertise, relationships, and behavioral signals, creating a powerful network effect as it is continuously enriched by participants across the healthcare ecosystem. Built on one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive global datasets of healthcare professionals, H1 combines deep healthcare data with agentic AI workflows to power critical workflows across drug development, medical and commercial engagement, care navigation, and provider data and network intelligence. Today, 85% of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies and 9 out of 10 of the top health plans trust H1 as a critical partner in building a healthier future for all.
Learn more at h1.com.
About Defacto Health
Defacto Health aggregates, organizes, and streamlines access to payer and provider data, helping organizations pursue innovative use cases across healthcare. Greater data liquidity and transparency unlock novel uses that will transform how healthcare is operated, organized, and accessed. Defacto's team is led by provider-data and interoperability veterans who have deployed healthcare data sets used by hundreds of payers, millions of providers, and tens of millions of patients. Defacto works closely with payers to support compliance with government requirements and to provide constructive feedback on the data and APIs they publish, and collaborates with health tech innovators to understand their use cases and data needs.
Media Contact
Michelle Faulkner
Big Swing for H1
michelle@big-swing.com
617-510-6998
