News 1/18/23

Top News

Male fertility-focused provider Posterity Health raises $7.5 million in a seed funding round, bringing its total raised to $17 million. It says it will use the investment to further develop its digital health platform. It offers virtual consults and operates clinics in Colorado and Texas.

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Webinars

January 19 (Thursday) 2 ET. “Supercharge Your Clinical Data Searches.” Sponsor: Particle Health. Presenter: Paul Robbins, MSMBA, VP of product, Particle. Particle’s team will preview the exciting results of Specialty Search, a new condition-specific record locator service. This webinar will review how to collect patient records from top Centers of Excellence across the entire country; how healthcare organizations of all types are benefiting from Specialty Search capabilities, using Particle’s simple API; and why a focused search of chronic condition data — in oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, orthopedics, and more — has an outsized impact on care outcomes.

Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

This tweet thread offers an interesting glimpse into the trend of private equity firms buying up physician practices, with little mention of how these acquisitions impact patient care. A few nuggets:

• The practice is a “large and super active” ASC that does $18M in annual revenue, with seven physicians – two of of whom are the “superstars” that bring in the majority of revenue.
• Practice owners typically stay on for two to five years.
• Standard operating model for a practice, once acquired, typically centers around hiring, better reimbursement negotiations, improving inefficiencies, revenues, etc. This one in particular is probably part of a larger play to help recruit more physicians into a brand.
• Similar deals are being done in the physical therapy, dermatology, med spa, and dental spaces.
• There is interest in pharmacies, but Walgreens and CVS are dominating.
• The most active PE firms doing these deals are Shore Capital Partners, KKR, Sheridan Capital Partners, and Linden Capital Partners.

Independent primary care practice management and optimization company Aledade becomes a public benefit corporation.

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Announcements and Implementations

Child & Family Services of Erie County (NY) selects Credible EHR software from Qualifacts.

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Research and Innovation

Community health center network AllianceChicago reports an increase in well-child visits and immunizations after implementing QliqSoft’s Quincy chatbot as part of a CHEC-UP digital intervention study.

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Other

Publix Pharmacy opens its fourth telemedicine site in partnership with Beaufort Memorial Hospital (SC). Virtual consults are $67.

STAT looks at the lengths telemedicine patients will go to in order to ensure that their prescriptions, particularly those for ADHD, carry over to in-person physicians when their online-only telemedicine physicians close up shop. As online providers like Cerebral face federal scrutiny for their prescribing practices, and pharmacies refuse to fill prescriptions from their doctors, patients face the challenge of shifting to in-person care with new providers, some of whom may not be as quick to prescribe the same medications: “You hear ‘telehealth’ and you’re automatically stuck wearing the ‘pill mill,’ ‘drug seeking’ stigma like a backpack, no matter where you go,” says one patient who shifted from online to in-person care.

Fast Company profiles Bicycle Health, an online provider specializing in opioid use disorder treatment that got its start six years ago in a brick-and-mortar clinic in California. The pandemic initiated a pivot to virtual-only consults, and the company now treats patients in 32 states. When it comes to prescription fulfillment, it seems the company hasn’t faced the same government scrutiny as companies like Cerebral and Done. Bicycle’s internally developed pharmacy finder has helped ensure patients can pick up prescriptions locally in a timely manner.

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Sponsor Updates

• Nordic releases another episode of its “In Network” podcast, “Designing for Health: Dr. Zafar Chaudry.”

Blog Posts

• Data Reconnaissance: Understanding your practice’s data landscape (AdvancedMD)

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Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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