News 9/12/22

Top News

Akido Labs acquires Chaparral Medical Group to create a medical network that will leverage Akido’s Care Delivery Platform, including social determinants of health-focused predictive analytics. Chaparral has 36 locations in California’s Pomona Valley.

CMG founder and President Prasad Jeereddi, MD will take on the additional role of Akido’s CMO.

Webinars

September 22 (Thursday) 1 ET. “ICD-10-CM 2023 Updates and Regulatory Readiness.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: June Bronnert, MSHI, RHIA, marketing director, IMO; Julie Glasgow, MD, marketing manager, IMO. The yearly update to ICD-10-CM is almost here. Prepare your organization for a smooth transition, and avoid any negative impacts to your bottom line, with an in-depth look at the upcoming changes. Listen to IMO’s top coding professionals and thought leaders discuss the 2023 ICD-10-CM coding changes. This webinar will review additions, deletions, and other revisions to the ICD-10-CM code set and how to make sure you get properly reimbursed.

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

HIStalk Practice Announcements and Requests

Thanks to AdvancedMD for supporting HIStalk Practice.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Direct primary care company Everside Health has raised $164 million in growth equity funding. The company, which gears its services toward employers, will use some of the financing to improve its Everside 360 technology, particularly in the area of predictive analytics and care delivery. Everside’s origins stem from DPC provider Paladina Health and its acquisitions of competitors Healthstat, Activate Healthcare, and R-Health over the last several years.

Announcements and Implementations

Health Leaders Group, a vendor of ophthalmology practice management and EHR software, implements MeldRx health data management technology from Darena Solutions.

Multi-specialty medical group Up Medical (CA) selects patient engagement and care management capabilities from Memora Health.

Optimis Services incorporates Kareo’s clinical and practice management software with its cloud-based EHR and practice management OptimisPT software for rehab clinics.

Research and Innovation

An MGMA data dive into the performance and practices of successful medical groups finds that better-performing practices offered more same-day appointments (and thus collecting more co-payments at time of service) than their poorer-performing counterparts.

Other

A Canadian couple takes out an ad – successfully – to find a new doctor. The newspaper’s editor says he’s never seen an ad like this one, nor the response it elicited: “It was all over Twitter and Facebook immediately. It was everywhere. It’s really a reflection of the scope of the problem that people are having getting doctors. A lot of people sympathized with that.”

Forbes posts quite a witty write-up about the electric vehicle-powered vasectomy performed at North Austin Urology in Texas. H/T to @boltyboy for tweeting about the story.

Sponsor Updates

• Quippe Clinical Lens from Medicomp Systems is added to the Cerner App Gallery.

Blog Posts

• Nurses of Note Awards 2022: The Lead Advanced Practice Provider (PerfectServe)
• How Healthcare Technology Can Optimize Nursing Workflows (TigerConnect)
• How Education Helps with Suicide Prevention (Healthwise)
• Healthcare is not aviation (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 9/7/22

Top News

CertifyOS raises $14.5 million in a Series A funding round led by General Catalyst. The company has developed APIs for provider credentialing, licensing, enrollment, and network monitoring. Its customers include VillageMD and Thirty Madison.

Webinars

September 22 (Thursday) 1 ET. “ICD-10-CM 2023 Updates and Regulatory Readiness.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: June Bronnert, MSHI, RHIA, marketing director, IMO; Julie Glasgow, MD, marketing manager, IMO. The yearly update to ICD-10-CM is almost here. Prepare your organization for a smooth transition, and avoid any negative impacts to your bottom line, with an in-depth look at the upcoming changes. Listen to IMO’s top coding professionals and thought leaders discuss the 2023 ICD-10-CM coding changes. This webinar will review additions, deletions, and other revisions to the ICD-10-CM code set and how to make sure you get properly reimbursed.

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

Announcements and Implementations

The Institute for Population Health, an FQHC based in Detroit, implements Carium’s virtual care platform. Smartlink Health Solutions assisted with EHR integration.

Noble adds remote patient monitoring capabilities to its mental health app to help primary care physicians better care for patients experiencing mental health issues. 

Other

STAT points out that telemedicine’s increasing ubiquity may have a dark side, given that many patients are left without providers when high- (or low-) profile telemedicine companies like Amazon Care close up shop or, like Cerebral, stop offering treatment for certain conditions. Consumers would do well to weigh the benefit of convenience against a telemedicine company’s length of time in business, partnerships with brick-and-mortar clinics, and ease of accessing medical records should the need arise to transfer to another provider.

Desperate to find a specialist after his physician’s practice closed, a Vancouver man places an ad in his local newspaper offering a $5,000 finder’s fee to anyone who can find him a new doctor specializing in neuromuscular diseases. He received numerous referrals from readers, none of whom would take his money, and has since found a new physician.

Patients in Morrisville, VT sue Lamoille Health Partners for its response to a June ransomware attack that forced its systems offline for more than a week. The patients contend the practice failed to safeguard their information, violated HIPAA, and failed to notify them of the hack in a timely manner. LHP issued a notice about the data incident August 11.

Sponsor Updates

• Microsoft publishes a case study featuring EClinicalWorks, “EClinicalWorks thrives in the cloud with Azure Virtual Machines and Azure Disk Storage.”
• PerfectServe celebrates its 25th anniversary.

Blog Posts

• 3 ways AI-enabled RPM is improving care delivery (AdvancedMD)
• Why Usability is So Critical to Healthcare IT (EClinicalWorks)
• How Better Clinical Communication Can Reduce Sentinel Events (PerfectServe)
• Can OpenNotes Be Too Open? (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 8/31/22

Top News

Kidney care companies Cricket Health, InterWell Health, and Fresenius Health Partners finalize their $2.4 billion merger, first announced in March, and begin operating under the InterWell Health brand. InterWell Health CEO Robert Sepucha says the company’s analytics, patient engagement, and virtual care capabilities will help it to reduce hospital admissions and readmissions, and better coordinate care.

Webinars

September 22 (Thursday) 1 ET. “ICD-10-CM 2023 Updates and Regulatory Readiness.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: June Bronnert, MSHI, RHIA, marketing director, IMO; Julie Glasgow, MD, marketing manager, IMO. The yearly update to ICD-10-CM is almost here. Prepare your organization for a smooth transition, and avoid any negative impacts to your bottom line, with an in-depth look at the upcoming changes. Listen to IMO’s top coding professionals and thought leaders discuss the 2023 ICD-10-CM coding changes. This webinar will review additions, deletions, and other revisions to the ICD-10-CM code set and how to make sure you get properly reimbursed.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Pithy as always, health IT veteran Jonathan Bush shares his thoughts on Amazon’s acquisition of One Medical: “The problem they will face is consumer alignment. While Amazon has been able to keep its true North Star ever ‘closer to the customer,’ One Medical has needed to seek payment from one hospital provider over another. This channel conflict with consumer interest will be very tough to iron out as the market heats up.”

Telepsychiatry company MindCare Solutions Group acquires hybrid mental healthcare business Psych360 for an undisclosed sum.

People

John Showalter, MD (Jvion) joins Linus Health as chief product officer.

Announcements and Implementations

The Tennessee Primary Care Association will deploy I2I Population Health’s Prizim network population health management technology to give its 22 community health center members greater data visualization capabilities. The technology will be implemented through TPCA’s Center for Quality in Community Health.

Other

Dr. Glaucomflecken shines another funny spotlight on rural healthcare.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic releases a new video highlighting its metadata-driven pipeline.

Blog Posts

• Back to school: Top scholarly tools for 2022 (AdvancedMD)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 8/29/22

Top News

Alma raises $130 million, bringing its total raised to $220.5 million since launching in 2018. The company has evolved from a company specializing in mental healthcare practice management technology and services to a tech-enabled developer of mental health provider networks.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Independent orthopedic practice -focused RCM company PRL rebrands to Koha Health and adds strategic advisory services that include technology systems integration consulting.

The local paper profiles Remission Medical, a telemedicine company specializing in rheumatology that launched in March. Based in Richmond, VA, the company serves patients in Virginia, Ohio, Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina. The company’s clinicians have equity stakes in the startup, and get paid through a revenue-split agreement. CEO Blake Wehman founded the company after a four-year stint with Siemens Healthineers.

People

Kidney care company Somatus names Joe Kimura, MD (Atrius Health) chief medical officer.

Alma hires Elisabeth Morray (LifeStance Health) as VP of clinical operations and Erik Lumer (Alan) as chief product officer.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic joins KLAS’s Arch Collaborative that looks at EHR best practices and clinician burnout.

Blog Posts

• Can OpenNotes be too open? (Nordic)
• How Better Clinical Communication Can Reduce Sentinel Events (PerfectServe)
• How Medical Systems Solve Clinical Workflow Challenges with TigerConnect Roles and Teams (TigerConnect)
• The role of EHR extensions in enhancing patient care (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 8/24/22

Top News

Healthcare finance and supply chain software and services startup Nitra raises $62 million and launches its first product, a rewards-based Visa Business card for practice owners.

The company’s partners include PatientPop, Zocdoc, and Amazon; while its advisory board boasts CityMD co-founder Richard Park and Practice Fusion founder Ryan Howard.

Webinars

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

Announcements and Implementations

HASA, an HIE that serves 3,000 physicians and 70 hospitals in Texas, rebrands to C3HIE to better reflect its focus on connection, collaboration, and community. The nonprofit also serves healthcare organizations in California, Delaware, and Florida.

Cipher Skin integrates Kno2’s health data exchange capabilities with its musculoskeletal care/recovery-monitoring system for physical therapy patients, enabling data to be transmitted from the system’s sensors to a physical therapist’s EHR.

Research and Innovation

Researchers determine that a primary care physician needs 26.7 hours to see an average daily number of patients and complete related administrative tasks. Documentation and inbox management took up 3.2 hours, according to the simulation study. Researchers suggest team-based care models, such as the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus model, could reduce daily care delivery to just 9.3 hours.

Other

The local paper profiles clean-up efforts in Neon, KY, which suffered devastating floods last month. The practice of Brenda Baker, MD was destroyed when nine-foot-high waters broke through the broken Yonts Fork flood gate. Baker, who is now seeing patients at the local middle school, lost $60,000 in medical equipment.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• How this simple cybersecurity practice could save you from a data breach (AdvancedMD)

• Addressing the Acute Need for Chronic Care Services (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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