The article about Pediatric Associates in CA has a nugget with a potentially outsized impact: the implication that VFC vaccines…
News 5/8/23
Top News
Inbox Health, a patient billing communications software vendor, raises $22.5 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total raised to $43 million since launching in 2017. The company serves 2,600 practices, reducing the amount of time their billing teams spend on patient A/R by 47%.
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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch says the company will not pursue any further mergers or acquisitions in the near-term so that the company can work on integrating Signify Health and Oak Street Health. It wrapped up its $10.6 billion acquisition of Medicare primary care chain Oak Street Health last week, and its $8 billion purchase of home healthcare provider Signify Health in late March. Walgreens made a similar statement in January.
The New York Times looks at the effect of corporate giants like CVS Health, Walgreens, Amazon and UnitedHealth buying up primary care practices, citing the growing privatization of Medicare and the resultant $400 billion “pot of money everyone is aiming at” as a contributing factor. The acquisition frenzy has prompted Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to call for the FTC to take a closer look at these deals: “I fear that the acquisition of thousands of independent providers by a few massive health care mega-conglomerates could reduce competition on a local or national basis, hurting patients and increasing health care costs.”
CareCloud attributes its 15% drop in Q1 revenue to a dip in professional services revenue, the absence of COVID-related RCM services, and customer migrations away from Meridian Medical Management, which CareCloud acquired in 2020.
People
Kate O’Brien (VTS) joins Practice Better as head of people.
CareCloud promotes Bill Korn to chief strategy officer and names Joseph DosSantos (Luzsana Biotechnology) CFO.
Announcements and Implementations
AmerisourceBergen will pilot a telehealth service at independent pharmacies using technology from SteadyMD. The pharmaceutical distributor and services company will also make a minority investment in SteadyMD, which offers providers white-label telemedicine support services and technology.
Other
Murfreesboro Medical Clinic & SurgiCenter continues to recover from an April cyberattack that prompted it to close its facilities last week. Several locations have now reopened, though lab and radiology services at all locations remain closed.
NextGen notifies over 1 million patients of a data breach in which hackers stole personal information by gaining access to its NextGen One EHR and practice management software using stolen customer credentials. The breach, which occurred during March and April, was preceded by a separate ransomware attack on the health IT vendor in January.
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Blog Posts
- Will AI help healthcare systems fight against disintermediation? (Nordic)
- How Better Communication Management Ensures Top of License Practice (PerfectServe)
- AI’s stretch towards the last mile (Nordic)
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