News 5/17/23

Top News

Virtual neurology clinic Neura Health raises $8 million in a seed funding round. The company plans to expand its currently direct-to-consumer offerings to employers and payers.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

NextGen Healthcare reports an 18% increase in Q4 revenue, beating analyst expectations, and a 9.5% increase in annual revenue.The company is reportedly facing a slew of class-action lawsuits related to a data breach discovered in late March impacting 1 million patient records.

Healthcare programs and payments company Nomi Health acquires Phoenix-based clinic I Am Wellness.

People

ModMed promotes Venkatesh Jayaraman (Vertex) to CTO.

Mike Bursich (Membersy) joins Qualifacts as chief revenue officer.

Medicus IT promotes Nelson Gomes to EVP of business development.

Announcements and Implementations

New Jersey-based ACO Shore Quality Partners selects Spatially Health’s Equity Equalizer social determinants of health assessment and interventions software.

Swift Health Medical Group in Atlanta will launch a remote patient monitoring program using technology and services from HealthIQ Solutions.

Government and Politics

Practice management, analytics, and RCM vendor MedEvolve pays HHS $350,000 to settle potential HIPAA violations related to a company server containing PHI that was left unsecure and accessible on the Web, as well as failures to conduct a risk/vulnerability analysis and to enter into appropriate business agreements.

Easy Healthcare, developer of the Premom ovulation-tracking app, will pay a $100,000 fine for violating the FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule. The FTC contends that the app disclosed user health data to third parties without their consent, deceived users about its data-sharing practices, and failed to notify its users of these violations.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic publishes a podcast titled “Designing for Health: Dr. Adam Wright.”

Blog Posts

• Happy Birthday to Advanced Reporting & Analytics! (AdvancedMD)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 5/15/23

Top News

Practice Perfect takes an ownership stake in Clinical Billing Solutions, and will integrate CBS RCM software and services with its EHR and practice management system for outpatient rehabilitation clinics.

Webinars

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

People

Jason Prestinario (Komodo Health) joins Particle Health as CEO.

Diverge Health names Vincent Pantone, MD (Elevance Health) chief medical officer and Craig Gaites (Equality Health) SVP of market operations.

Announcements and Implementations

Community Health Access Network will implement Athenahealth across seven FQHCs in New Hampshire.

OrthoCarolina will implement Calm Waters AI’s evaluation and management coding software.

Research and Innovation

A Black Book survey of 2,420 providers finds that nearly all have plans to enlist the aid of consultants to help them move forward with value-based contracting. Providers are still trying to recover from a pandemic-induced lack of VBC resources that led to missed outcome metrics and an inability to handle reporting requirements in-house. Survey-takers ranked CareAllies highest among VBC advisors.

Other

Murfreesboro Medical Clinic & SurgiCenter (TN) seems to have resumed nearly normal operations across its facilities, though messaging via its patient portal was still down as of Friday. It shut down operations for nearly two weeks as it worked to restore systems impacted by a cyberattack in late April.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic will present at the AMIA 2023 Clinical Informatics Conference May 24 in Chicago.
• PerfectServe honors over 200 outstanding nurses in its third annual Nurses of Note Awards program.
• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast, “Experience a More Efficient EMR with V12.”
• Nordic posts Episode 205 of its DocTalk podcast titled “Decentralized care supports the health of older adults.”

Blog Posts

• Nurses of Note Awards 2023: The Nursing Team at Blue Mountain Hospital, a Critical Access Facility (PerfectServe
• Building long-term ROI with BI modernization (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 5/10/23

Top News

Petaluma Health Center, an FQHC with multiple locations in Petaluma, CA, notifies patients of a March data breach in which hackers accessed information pertaining to employees, board members, and volunteers.

The practice went live on Epic last week.

Webinars

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

People

George Hamilton (UnitedHealth Group) joins Athenahealth as chief corporate strategy and development officer.

Announcements and Implementations

The Center for Minimally Invasive Neurosurgery in Texas implements EClinicalWorks.

CHE Behavioral Health Services will roll out NextGen’s behavioral health suite of software solutions across its facilities in 14 states.

Other

Thor Christensen, MD cites Health PEI’s Telus Health EHR as the driving factor in his decision to resign from the Canadian government health system after working as a rural family physician for nearly eight years. Health PEI began implementing the system in the summer of 2021. Some of his complaints:

• Electronically prescribing medications takes four to five minutes, versus 15 paper-based seconds.
• Promised interoperability amongst Health PEI facilities has yet to be achieved.
• Administrative tasks pile up, forcing him to spend several hours on his laptop at home each night.
• The system still can’t assist with bloodwork.

Sponsor Updates

• AdvancedMD publishes a new e-book, “The Current State of Telehealth in Ambulatory Care.”

Blog Posts

• Will AI help healthcare systems fight against disintermediation? (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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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%.

Webinars

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

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.

Sponsor Updates

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)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 5/3/23

Top News

The DEA announces that it will temporarily extend COVID-era emergency telehealth policies, giving telemedicine prescribers of controlled substances, particularly those used to treat opioid addiction and ADHD, more time to prepare their patients and business strategies for eventual, more permanent policy changes.

Prescribers will still be able to write prescriptions for these medications after a telemedicine visit, rather than first requiring an initial, in-person consult. The agency, which received 38,000 comments on its proposal to revert to pre-COVID, in-person requirements, has not said how long the temporary extension will last.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Kristin Mallon and Michele Wispelwey launch FemGevity, a concierge telemedicine service for women going through menopause. Mallon, a licensed certified nurse midwife and certified obstetrical nurse, was formerly chief strategy officer at high-risk Ob/Gyn practice  Maternal Resources in New Jersey. Wispelwey was a former director of women’s health services at Accurate Diagnostics.

Announcements and Implementations

Phoenix Family Medical Clinic (AZ) selects CareCloud’s EHR, RCM, chronic care management, and remote patient monitoring technologies.

Raintree Systems adds payment capabilities to its EHR and practice management offerings for therapy and rehab practices.

LCH Health and Community Services, an FQHC with three locations in Pennsylvania, implements Athenahealth’s AthenaOne and AthenaOne Dental platforms.

Southern Delaware Imaging Associates opts for practice management and revenue cycle software and services from Healthcare Administrative Partners.

Other

Murfreesboro Medical Clinic & SurgiCenter in Tennessee remains closed as it works to bring systems back online after an April 22 cyberattack.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic releases a new episode of its In Network podcast, “Making Rounds: Leveraging analytics to create efficiencies.”
• EClinicalWorks releases a new podcast episode, “Enhanced Telehealth Experience with Healow Solutions.”

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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