News 10/26/22

Top News

Motto launches to offer people with auto-immune conditions access to virtual rheumatology care, lifestyle coaching, and symptom tracking and condition management. The company was born out of healthcare startup development company Redesign Health, which, in other news, laid off 20% of its staff earlier this month as part of corporate restructuring.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Robin Healthcare secures a $17 million loan from Horizon Technology Finance. Its Robin Assistant virtual scribe technology is geared towards orthopedic practices. The company has raised $15 million since launching four years ago.

JPMorgan Chase partners with Central Ohio Primary Care and Vera Whole Health to open five primary care clinics for Columbus employees enrolled in its health plan. In addition to its clinical partners, JPMorgan Chase is leveraging the expertise of Morgan Health, its new business unit focused on improving all aspects of employee care. (It will likely also pull from lessons learned during its short-lived Haven days.)

People

Aledade names Ritwik Tewari (Meta) CTO.

Other

A $10,563.49 ER bill for the treatment of her husband’s broken arm prompts Sunita Kalsariya, office manager of his medical practice, to do some digging into its specific charges. A year later, his bill had been sent to collections, she’d contacted the state attorney general, and found that the hospital charged $7,000 for a procedure that had never been performed. After much back and forth – including mailing a notarized request for medical records because the hospital wouldn’t accept it via fax or email – the couple wound up paying the after-insurance balance of $1,214.91.

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks publishes a new customer success story showcasing how its AI-based Scribe dictation technology has helped Open Door Family Medical Center combat pandemic challenges and reduce physician burnout.

Blog Posts

• High Time to Get to the Cloud (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 10/24/22

Top News

Practice management company Unified Women’s Healthcare will acquire Gennev, a digital care company for menopausal women.

Webinars

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

Here’s the recording of last week’s webinar, sponsored by Mend, titled “Patient Payment Trends 2022 Learn All The Secrets.”

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Value-based care optimization company Navvis merges with St. Louis-based independent physician group Esse Health to form Surround Care. Navvis Chairman and CEO Mike Farris will serve the new company in similar, additional roles.

Telemedicine company Antidote Health will reportedly lay off 23 employees within R&D at its office in Israel as it attempts to “streamline, and preserve its cash” in the face of uncertain financial markets. The startup markets virtual primary, urgent, and mental healthcare to consumers in 20 US states. It has raised over nearly $45 million since launching last year.

Point-of-care digital patient education company CheckedUp acquires competitor Health Media Network for an undisclosed sum.

People

Jamie Hall (Transcarent) joins virtual primary care vendor CirrusMD as CEO.

Other

Main Line Women’s Healthcare in Philadelphia notifies 804 patients of a data breach that occurred when an employee took pictures of patient medical charts using a personal cell phone. The employee, who may face criminal charges, has been fired.

An eye doctor in California removes 23 disposable contact lenses from a patient’s eye after she came in complaining of blurry vision.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic Consulting is recognized with best employer awards from Comparably and Madison Magazine.

Blog Posts

• If you build it, they will come (Nordic)
• 7 Tips to Make EHR Consolidations Less Stressful (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 10/19/22

Top News

EngagedMD, which offers patient education and informed consent technologies for fertility practices, raises $11 million.

Webinars

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

People

Athenahealth names Brittany Podolak (Dell Technologies) chief people officer.

Announcements and Implementations

OneMed in Orlando implements Andor Health’s ThinkAndor virtual care collaboration software.

Government and Politics

Ontario’s provincial government will decrease payments to providers for “one-off” telemedicine visits in an effort to “stem the tide” of virtual-only clinics that don’t make an effort to establish an ongoing relationship with patients.

Research and Innovation

A Brigham and Women’s research analysis of 291 primary care physicians and their EHR utilization finds that more time spent documenting in the EHR correlates to improved outcomes in the areas of breast cancer screenings, hypertension control, and panel-wide hemoglobin A_1C level control. This was found to be especially true for physicians who spent less than half of their time seeing patients.

Other

Audiologist Carla “Brandi” Smiley, Au.D. creates Onsite Audiology, a mobile, “tiny house” audiology clinic that serves patients south of Atlanta. Smiley typically drives the clinic to four or five different locations each month to care for patients in schools and in nursing homes, as well as active-duty members of the military and veterans.

Sponsor Updates

• EClinicalWorks announces that Advocare has achieved $1 billion in collections using EClinicalWorks RCM.

Blog Posts

• Practice Management Software Market Insights: Boosting Healthcare Service Efficiency (AdvancedMD)

• How a Remote Solution Keeps Patients Close (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 10/17/22

Top News

Cityblock Health will bring 140 new jobs to Indiana when it begins providing care for MDwise members in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. Already operating in six states, Cityblock provides tech-enabled primary care, behavioral healthcare, and social services to Medicaid and eligible Medicare patients, particularly those living in underserved areas.

The company was spun out of Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs in 2017. It has raised nearly $900 million over eight funding rounds.

Webinars

October 18 (Tuesday) 2 ET. “Patient Payment Trends 2022: Learn All The Secrets.” Sponsor: Mend. Presenter: Matt McBride, MBA, co-founder and CEO, Mend. Many industries offer frictionless payments, but healthcare still sends paper bills to patients who are demanding modern conveniences. This webinar will review consumer sentiment on healthcare payments, recent changes to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act that create opportunities for new patient financial engagement, and new tactics to collect more payments faster from patients.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Personalized medication management company Custom Health acquires Health in Motion Network, which has developed software that enables patients to view and track data from medical and lab records, monitoring devices, and wearables.

People

Octiva Healthcare names Ron Galonsky (RJG Healthcare) CEO.

Annexus Health promotes David Meier to CTO and names Katy Wile (Huron) VP of product delivery.

Announcements and Implementations

PhysicianOne Urgent Care implements Augnito’s AI-powered voice recognition software for clinical documentation across its 20 locations across several states.

Government and Politics

The University of Montana and Montana State University establish the first VA telehealth sites at academic institutions, part of the department’s Accessing Telehealth through Local Area Stations program. Veteran students and staff can access services from the Montana VA Health Care System using the private ATLAS spaces.

Other

Samsung will offer access to virtual medial visits via telemedicine vendor HealthTap through its line of Smart TVs.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic posts a new episode of its DocTalk video series called “The Impact of Long COVID.”
• Nordic joins the Microsoft Cloud Partner Program.

Blog Posts

• Technology: A Lifeline for Burned-Out Nurses (PerfectServe)
• EHR consolidation: How to lead with empathy (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.

News 10/12/22

Top News

Pediatric virtual mental healthcare company InStride Health launches with $26 million in funding.

Webinars

October 18 (Tuesday) 2 ET. “Patient Payment Trends 2022: Learn All The Secrets.” Sponsor: Mend. Presenter: Matt McBride, MBA, co-founder and CEO, Mend. Many industries offer frictionless payments, but healthcare still sends paper bills to patients who are demanding modern conveniences. This webinar will review consumer sentiment on healthcare payments, recent changes to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act that create opportunities for new patient financial engagement, and new tactics to collect more payments faster from patients.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Well Health Technologies, a Canadian health IT vendor and clinic operator, acquires medical record and billing software and three clinics from CloudMD Software & Services, also based in Canada, for $4.2 million.

Specialty practice EHR and practice management software company Nextech acquires TouchMD, a visual consultation, marketing, and imaging software vendor.

Announcements and Implementations

Community Care of the Sandhills (NC) launches a telepsychiatry program using software and services from InSight Telepsychiatry.

Associates in Resource Management will leverage Greenway Health’s EHR, practice management, and RCM technology as it expands its services to FQHCs, rural health centers, and private practices in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama.

AMS Cardiology (PA) selects practice support services from Atria Health.

Athenahealth uses Jopari’s software to file electronic claim attachment transactions with payers.

Research and Innovation

New data from MGMA finds that rates of physician burnout have increased 4% over last year, with 65% of respondents saying they’ve experienced burnout this year. Not surprisingly, 51% of surveyed providers have considered changing employers. The findings support a separate MGMA poll that found 40% of surveyed practices have had at least one physician resign or retire early due to burnout.

Other

Talk about a pivot: Former 98point6 CEO Robbie Cape begins working on an environmentally-friendly fast-casual chicken sandwich restaurant in Seattle dubbed Mt. Joy that will leverage innovative technology developed by his former 98point6 software engineer Justin Kaufman. Cape launched the telemedicine company in 2015. He left the company last year at the board’s direction after leading it to $250 million in funding.

MGMA’s Medical Practice Excellence Leaders Conference winds down in Boston today. I’ve been out of the conference loop for awhile. Are therapy animals now a must-have on the show floor?

Sponsor Updates

• Healthwise and Medicomp Systems will exhibit at the Oracle Cerner Health Conference October 17-19 in Kansas City, MO.

Blog Posts

• Five Ways to Optimize Practice Resources While Driving Higher Quality Care (AdvancedMD)
• ‘Value Over Volume, Patients Like Family’ (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

Get HIStalk Practice updates.
Contact us online.
Become a sponsor.