The article about Pediatric Associates in CA has a nugget with a potentially outsized impact: the implication that VFC vaccines…
News 3/18/24
Top News
Patient intake and engagement software vendor Phreesia reports a 24% increase in Q4 earnings, bringing in $95 million. The company saw a similar bump in fiscal year revenue, to $356 million. Prompted by an investor’s question about the Change Healthcare cyberattack, CEO Chaim Indig noted during the earnings call that “it’s been pretty terrible for a lot of our clients” and that Phreesia employees have worked diligently to shift its customers to alternate clearinghouses while Change recovers. He also emphasized the company’s commitment to continued investments in security and compliance.
Webinars
March 27 (Wednesday) 3 ET. “Houston Methodist: Deploying clinical AI at scale for improved outcomes.” Sponsor: Health Data Analytics Institute. Presenters: Khurram Nasir, MD, MPH, chief of cardiovascular disease prevention and wellness, Houston Methodist DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center; Brenda Campbell, RN, senior consultant, HM Health System Innovations; Nassib Chamoun, MS, founder and CEO, HDAI. The presenters will share how an interdisciplinary team collaborated to successfully use predictive models and a novel AI-driven approach to address post-discharge mortality. They will also describe how they expanded use of the platform to reduce clinician time spent digging through the EHR with a one-page risk profile, including codes extracted from notes using generative AI, and targeting their highest risk patients for extra attention. They will speak to how they overcame barriers to bringing AI at scale to support clinicians across the care continuum.
Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present or promote your own.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
Walgreens will close distribution facilities in Dayville, CT, and Orlando, FL, laying off 646 employees in the process. The closures are part of an organizational restructuring announced last summer.
People
AllerVie Health promotes Rachel Russell to chief experience officer, a role that will shape the clinic chain’s new technology-focused patient experience division.
Announcements and Implementations
Regional Medical Associates (DE) adds Sunoh.ai medical scribe technology to its EClinicalWorks EHR.
Healthgrades automates appointment requests within physician profiles on its website using technology from Medchat.
Circle Medical selects AI-powered preventive care and clinical trial screening software from Healwell AI’s Khure Health business.
Care collaboration company Thyme Care launches Thyme Care Oncology Partners to help oncology clinics transition to value-based care.
United Medical Centers, an FQHC with nine locations in Texas, selects EHR and practice management software from NextGen Healthcare.
Other
Physician practices across the country express their frustration with the impact the Change Healthcare cyberattack has had on their ability to process claims, see insured patients, make payroll, and keep the lights on. The practice of Christine Meyer, MD has gone from average weekday deposits of between $20,000 and $50,000 to just $77. Meyer sums up the situation: “It’s been one of the most stressful things we’ve gone through as a practice, and that’s saying something given that we survived COVID. …To find ourselves suddenly, you know, looking at our home and its value, and can we afford to put it up to pay our employees, is a terrible feeling.”
Meanwhile, Thomas Edwards, MD of Berkshire Allergy Care in Pittsfield, MA, says the three-clinic practice, which employs 30 people, will be broke after the next payroll. Edwards notes that the practice’s billing company, AdvancedMD, hasn’t been able to successfully push claims through a clearinghouse other than Change. Thus, BAC will have to retroactively submit paper-based claims, which could take weeks, if not months. Edwards has applied for various forms of financial aid to keep the practice afloat, including that offered by UnitedHealth Group.
Sponsor Updates
- Nordic Consulting debuts its Cloud Innovation Lab developed in partnership with Microsoft Azure and AWS.
- EClinicalWorks offers a new customer success story, “Empowering Population Health & Revenue Growth.”
Contacts
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