News 3/16/22

Top News

House Rx raises $25 million in a Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Founded by former Flatiron Health executives, the startup has developed technology that helps specialty practices and pharmacists collaborate to offer patients timely access to specialty medications.

Launched a year ago, the San Francisco-based company has 30 employees serving 30 providers across four clinics on the West Coast.

HIStalk Practice Musings

Dr. Jayne’s mention of “Howard’s End” in her latest update from HIMSS got me to thinking about my E.M. Forster phase in junior high, when I read and watched “Where Angels Fear to Tread,” “Remains of the Day,” and “Howard’s End.” Having re-read them during the initial days of COVID, I now realize that what I took for British romanticism back then are actually just well-told tales of the miserably repressed upper-crust (or those who aspire to that label, in the case of Leonard Bast).

In any case, fans of Forster may be interested to know that Starz has adapted “Howard’s End” into a four-episode mini-series available on Prime. It could be just the thing for weary road warriors to watch once home from HIMSS.

Webinars

April 6 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “19 Massive Best Practices We’ve Learned from 4 Million Telehealth Visits.” Sponsor: Mend. Presenter: Matt McBride, MBA, founder, president, and CEO, Mend. Virtual visits have graduated from a quickly implemented technical novelty to a key healthcare strategy. The challenge now is to define how telehealth can work seamlessly with in-person visits. This webinar will address patient satisfaction, reducing no-show rates to single digits, and using technology to make telehealth easy to use and accessible for all patients. The presenter will share best practices that have been gleaned from millions of telehealth visits and how they have been incorporated into a leading telemedicine and AI-powered patient engagement platform.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

UK-based menopause care app developer Vira Health raises $12.1 million, which it will use to support employer adoption in the US, clinical trials, and the addition of telemedicine,

Announcements and Implementations

Casper Medical Imaging and Outpatient Radiology (WY) implements patient portal software from Royal Solutions Group.

MedWise Urgent Care (OK) adopts Athenahealth’s medical coding software across its nine clinics.

Other

If headlines are any indication, Canadians seem to excel in recruiting physicians to their rural communities: The Bay It Forward community development and physician recruitment group of Glace Bay in Nova Scotia has successfully recruited their third family physician in as many years. Though the group had to resort to pulling out all of the usual stops virtually because of COVID, they were able to successfully lure physician Isi Aigbe to their community of around 20,000. Bay It Forward’s David MacKeigan puts it nicely:

“In normal times, we would take them on a tour of the Miners Museum, take them on a boat ride along the shoreline and jigging for mackerel — they love that — and introduce them to people,” he said. “We had to do it virtually and that was tough. We contacted 902 Advertising and they did up a promotional video and we did a virtual tour. At the time, there were five doctors who were interested, and it was Dr. Isi who selected to come and she’s a darlin’.”

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Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 3/14/22

Top News

Ambulatory end users give ModMed, Cerner, and Allscripts top marks across multiple categories for user satisfaction, according to a Black Book survey of nearly 16,000 specialty practices. Additional findings include:

• Robust, multi-use EHRs with well-developed specialty modules garner the highest user satisfaction.
• Twelve percent of specialty practices using their first EHR will switch systems within the next year to more specialty-focused, cloud-based systems.
• Forty percent of surveyed practices report interoperability issues with the medical centers and health systems where they refer patients.

HIStalk Practice Musings

I dove into “The Monuments Men” by Robert Edsel several weeks ago, just as the Russian/Ukrainian conflict began making headlines. The geopolitical machinations provided an interesting backdrop against which to read about the multinational effort to save artistic masterpieces – and thus, the cultures of occupied nations – from the Nazi regime. As someone who almost minored in art history, I found it to be a compelling read. I was torn, though, between the soldiers’ valiant, sometimes fatal, efforts to save works of art, and the nagging idea that perhaps their time could have been better spent on more humanitarian pursuits. I’ll definitely re-watch the Coen Brothers’ film adaptation, and Edsel’s separate work on similar rescue efforts in Italy.

Webinars

April 6 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “19 Massive Best Practices We’ve Learned from 4 Million Telehealth Visits.” Sponsor: Mend. Presenter: Matt McBride, MBA, founder, president, and CEO, Mend. Virtual visits have graduated from a quickly implemented technical novelty to a key healthcare strategy. The challenge now is to define how telehealth can work seamlessly with in-person visits. This webinar will address patient satisfaction, reducing no-show rates to single digits, and using technology to make telehealth easy to use and accessible for all patients. The presenter will share best practices that have been gleaned from millions of telehealth visits and how they have been incorporated into a leading telemedicine and AI-powered patient engagement platform.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Urgent Care Clinic of Lincoln (NE) sues PracticeMax, its billing, IT, and practice management vendor, for allegedly mishandling several hundred claims over the last several years. The clinic claims it discovered the discrepancies while handling fall-out last year from PracticeMax’s ransomware attack, which impacted 165,000 patients.

Research and Innovation

Patients are more likely to disclose symptoms of depression, fall risk, or intimate partner violence when filling out a tablet-based assessment versus an in-person assessment, according to a study conducted at three Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist family medicine and three internal medicine practices in North Carolina. Results from the electronic assessments were automatically included in the patient’s Epic medical record. Clinicians received alerts if assessment results warranted immediate care during the appointment. Next steps for the study include rolling out the digital assessments to community care settings.

Other

Jax Spine & Pain Centers (FL) has announced it was the victim of a January ransomware attack on an inactive server that stored patient files accumulated prior to May 2018. The practice’s main, cloud-based server was not affected.

Meanwhile, Norwood Clinic in Alabama notifies over 228,000 patients of an October cyberattack that may have compromised PHI.

Update: The social media efforts of Bell Island residents to attract a doctor back to the community have paid off. Family physician Firas Ayar, who left the Canadian island last fall to work on the mainland, will soon return to work out an 11-week contract through Eastern Health. Wabana Mayor Gary Gosine says having an MD back at the island’s only health center is a step in the right direction, but that more needs to be done: “This community needs to get behind this doctor and to put pressure on Eastern Health to make sure they provide him with whatever he needs to stay here.… [That] he not only comes to serve in his medical expertise on the island, but also has a quality life here.”

Just in time for Women’s History Month: The 2022 edition of “48 Women: Arizona’s Most Intriguing Women” will feature Mitzi Krockover, MD founder of the Iris Cantor-UCLA Women’s Health Center, former Humana executive, angel investor, partner in healthcare consulting firm SSB Solutions, and host of the Beyond the Paper Gown podcast.

Sponsor Updates

• HIPAA-Compliant Texting: Tips on Patient Communication (PerfectServe)

Blog Posts

• How FHIR Solutions Do Double Duty for IT Teams and Clinicians (Healthwise)
• Five healthcare interoperability myths debunked (Nordic)
• 3 Ways That Healow Pay Helped a Growing Primary Care Practice (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 3/9/22

Top News

Noula Health, a reproductive support services startup, has raised $1.4 million in pre-seed funding. The company will offer subscription-based virtual care, at-home diagnostics, and access to health coaches.

Founder Noelle Acosta previously led business development at tech-enabled women’s healthcare company Maven Clinic.

Webinars

April 6 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “19 Massive Best Practices We’ve Learned from 4 Million Telehealth Visits.” Sponsor: Mend. Presenter: Matt McBride, MBA, founder, president, and CEO, Mend. Virtual visits have graduated from a quickly implemented technical novelty to a key healthcare strategy. The challenge now is to define how telehealth can work seamlessly with in-person visits. This webinar will address patient satisfaction, reducing no-show rates to single digits, and using technology to make telehealth easy to use and accessible for all patients. The presenter will share best practices that have been gleaned from millions of telehealth visits and how they have been incorporated into a leading telemedicine and AI-powered patient engagement platform.

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

People

Primary care managed services organization UpStream Healthcare names Cone Health executives Steve Neorr COO and David Grapey, MD CMO.

Announcements and Implementations

Hot on Meditech’s heels and just in time for HIMSS, Epic announces that it will offer a version of its system to independent medical groups of more than 40 providers, directly from the company, negating the need for a Community Connect agreement with a health system. Dubbed “Garden Plot,” Epic will offer the system in a software-as-a-service model that includes hosting, support, updates, and integrated third-party products.

Unison Behavioral Health (GA) has implemented Eleos Health’s AI-powered automated documentation software.

Other

San Antonio-based healthcare startup Betty’s Co. launches a mobile clinic offering young women gynecological and mental health services. The company also offers virtual care. Founder and CEO Jennifer Newell spent eight years at the Advisory Board Company before launching Betty’s Co. in 2020.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 3/7/22

Top News

Private equity firm GTCR acquires urgent care health IT vendor Experity for a rumored $1.2 billion. Experity was created in 2019 through the merger of Practice Velocity and DocuTap. It acquired patient survey and reputation management company Calibrater Health in 2020.

Webinars

April 6 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “19 Massive Best Practices We’ve Learned from 4 Million Telehealth Visits.” Sponsor: Mend. Presenter: Matt McBride, MBA, founder, president, and CEO, Mend. Virtual visits have graduated from a quickly implemented technical novelty to a key healthcare strategy. The challenge now is to define how telehealth can work seamlessly with in-person visits. This webinar will address patient satisfaction, reducing no-show rates to single digits, and using technology to make telehealth easy to use and accessible for all patients. The presenter will share best practices that have been gleaned from millions of telehealth visits and how they have been incorporated into a leading telemedicine and AI-powered patient engagement platform.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

CVS files an application with the US Patent Trade Office to trademark its logo, and provide healthcare services including non-emergency telemedicine in the metaverse. I suppose the family Oculus is the next patient access point for virtual care.

Former Livongo executives launch Homeward Health with a $20 million investment from General Catalyst. The startup aims to provide Medicare Advantage plan members in rural communities with primary and specialty care using local care teams that provide in-person and virtual services, and in-home remote patient monitoring. It is initially focusing its evidence-based, value-based care model on cardiology.

Government and Politics

A federal judge sentences Ameet Goyal, MD to 96 months in prison, five years of supervised release, and penalties of $7.2 million for a seven-year medical billing scheme in which he falsely upcoded $3.6 million in procedures. He has also been found guilty of fraudulently obtaining small business loans issued during the pandemic. In addition to bullying employees into going along with his scheme, Goyal even went so far as to send patients who couldn’t pay his falsely upcoded bills to collections agencies, negatively affecting their credit.

Other

ViVE 2022 gets underway in Miami, where daily temps are in the high 70s and the mojitos are apparently flowing in the exhibit hall, where 273 companies have committed to the inaugural event. National Coordinator Micky Tripathi’s session seems to have attracted a healthy crowd. Feel free to email me with any ambulatory-related observations.

Sponsor Updates

• PerfectServe Values Awards winners include Sales Manager Joe Faso for collaboration, Enterprise Solutions Manager Alex Van Buren for integrity, Customer Solutions Director Cameron Shahnazi for innovation, Customer Success Advisor Courtney Allnutt for service, Deployment Manager Phil Towne for purpose, People Operations & Office Coordinator Kerry Mathews for inclusion, and VP of Customer Solutions Lois Hester for leadership.
• Nordic Consulting has received certification from HITRUST via the risk-based, two-year validation process.

Blog Posts

• Why healthcare leaders should embrace the cloud (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 3/2/22

Top News

Ro acquires at-home sperm collection, testing, and storage startup Dadi for $100 million. It’s the online pharmacy and virtual care company’s second foray into reproductive health services, having acquired home fertility testing company Modern Fertility last May for $225 million. Ro announced a $150 million funding round – and a concurrent $7 billion valuation – last month, bringing its total funding to $1 billion.

Webinars

None scheduled soon. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Announcements and Implementations

Meditech makes Expanse Ambulatory, the company’s cloud-based mobile EHR and practice management software, available via subscription to independent and physician-owned practices.

In California, the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency Public Health Department will implement Innovaccer’s Health Cloud, including a centralized case management data platform, with help from consulting firm Intrepid Ascent.

Lemonaid Health will use SteadyMD’s white-label telemedicine software and staffing solution to power its new membership-based Primary Care Complete virtual care service.

Other

Residents on Bell Island, a tiny spit of land nestled off the coast of Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador province, create a grassroots marketing effort to lure family physician Firas Ayar back to the community. The island, which has 2,800 residents, has seen all three of its family physicians leave within the last year. Its remaining doctor works in its ER. The campaign has taken a turn reminiscent of the antics depicted in “The Grand Seduction,” a 2013 movie (now in my queue) about a small Newfoundland town that pulls together to recruit a reluctant a physician.

Sponsor Updates

• Amazon features AdvancedMD in an AWS case study, “AdvancedMD Reduces Time Spent Managing SQL Server Backups by 85% Using Amazon FSx.”

Blog Posts

• The Network EHR, Prisma, and Beyond (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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Become a sponsor.