News 10/27/21

Top News

Senior-focused primary care startup Patina Health launches with $57 million in funding. The company offers virtual and in-home care services that focus on physical and behavioral health, care coordination amongst service providers, and information sharing between care team and family members.

Patina Health CEO Jack Stoddard was the former CEO of Haven, the short-lived joint venture between Amazon, JP Morgan, and Berkshire Hathaway.

Webinars

October 28 (Thursday) 1 ET. “A New Streamlined Approach to Documentation and Problem List Management in Cerner Millennium.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Deepak Pillai, MD, physician informaticist, IMO; David Arco, product manager, IMO; Nicole Douglas, senior product marketing manager, IMO. IMO and Cerner announce the launch of the IMO Core CSmart app, an in-workflow offering to improve clinical documentation and problem list management in Cerner Millennium. The presenters will review the challenges and bottlenecks of clinical documentation and problem list management, discuss how streamlined workflows within Cerner Millennium can reduce clinician HIT burden, and demonstrate how IMO Core CSmart can help clinicians document with ease and specificity, improve HCC coding, and make problem lists more relevant. Additional sessions will be offered on November 17 and December 1.

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

People

Casey Jenkins (Wiley) will join Epocrates as VP of product.

CareCloud promotes Dwight Garvin to COO, and names Pete Fagot (Santa Rosa Consulting) chief revenue officer and Heather Logan (Santa Rosa Consulting) chief administrative officer of its MedSR subsidiary.

Announcements and Implementations

Hill Physicians Medical Group (CA) implements referral guidance and scheduling software from Vim.

Soma Medical Center has deployed EHR and health information search engine technologies from EClinicalWorks across its 25 facilities in Florida.

Research and Innovation

An MGMA survey of 420 practices finds that nearly all respondents have seen regulatory burdens increase over the last year, while a similar percentage believe reducing those burdens would allow them to allocate more resources towards patient care. Respondents cited prior authorization requirements, the Medicare Quality Payment Program, and COVID-19 workplace mandates as the top burdens. Regarding MIPS, participants aren’t seeing worthwhile ROI: Of those participating in the program, nearly 100% haven’t seen incentive payments cover the costs of preparing for and reporting under the program.

Other

MGMA’s Medical Practice Excellence Leaders Conference took place this week in San Diego. While there were tons of tweeted session pictures, this one caught my eye as being the cutest.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 10/25/21

Top News

Clinigence, a population health management company that operates a Florida-based ACO and network of primary care physicians and specialists in Los Angeles, acquires managed services organization ProCare Health.

Webinars

October 28 (Thursday) 1 ET. “A New Streamlined Approach to Documentation and Problem List Management in Cerner Millennium.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Deepak Pillai, MD, physician informaticist, IMO; David Arco, product manager, IMO; Nicole Douglas, senior product marketing manager, IMO. IMO and Cerner announce the launch of the IMO Core CSmart app, an in-workflow offering to improve clinical documentation and problem list management in Cerner Millennium. The presenters will review the challenges and bottlenecks of clinical documentation and problem list management, discuss how streamlined workflows within Cerner Millennium can reduce clinician HIT burden, and demonstrate how IMO Core CSmart can help clinicians document with ease and specificity, improve HCC coding, and make problem lists more relevant. Additional sessions will be offered on November 17 and December 1.

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

People

UpHealth names Sarah Arnquist (Beacon Health Options) SVP of behavioral health.

Announcements and Implementations

Human services organization Volunteers of America Florida selects the SmartCare EHR from Streamline Healthcare Solutions.

The South Carolina Telehealth Alliance offers providers at health centers and group practices throughout the state free access to ReferWell’s physician consult software through its new South Caroline EConsult program.

Research and Innovation

An AHIMA survey of 1,000 patients finds that 75% of respondents leave their doctor’s appointments feeling disappointed due to the brevity of question-and-answer time with their physician, confusion about their health, and feeling like they need to do more research. A majority also admit to not feeling confident about their understanding of what was discussed during the appointment. AHIMA points out that patients may better understand and retain what is discussed if they review their health records first.

Other

Fast Company profiles Reef Technology, which helps businesses turn empty parking lots into pop-up and sometimes permanent locations using shipping containers. Reef has partnered with Carbon Health to build out pop-up COVID-19 testing sites, and then helped the care delivery company turn them into more permanent urgent care clinics. Reef is currently working with clinic chain Rezilient Health to launch six Cloud Clinics, which will offer patients the ability to see the same provider virtually at any location.

Central Indiana Orthopedics takes its systems offline after a cyberattack on October 16. Phone systems were restored a day later. TriValley Primary Care in Pennsylvania suffers a similar attack, forcing it to also take its systems offline for a period of time.

Kaiser Health News is accepting submissions for its Halloween-themed #HealthCareScare haiku contest through October 27.

Sponsor Updates

• Is the EHR a Provider? (Nordic)
• Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October (PerfectServe)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 10/20/21

Top News

Walgreens launches a health division and announces that it will spend $5.2 billion to open 1,000 Village Medical at Walgreens primary care practices by 2027. The VillageMD-staffed practices will open across 30 US cities, primarily in underserved areas.

The retailer’s relationship with VillageMD began in 2019 with the piloting of five co-located clinics in Houston; and strengthened a year later with new clinics, a $250 million investment, and news of a longer-term expansion plan that is now being fully fleshed out.

Walgreens has increased its ownership stake in the company from 30% to 63%. VillageMD, which has developed proprietary technology as part of its value-based care offerings, remains a standalone company with plans to IPO sometime next year.

Webinars

October 28 (Thursday) 1 ET. “A New Streamlined Approach to Documentation and Problem List Management in Cerner Millennium.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Deepak Pillai, MD, physician informaticist, IMO; David Arco, product manager, IMO; Nicole Douglas, senior product marketing manager, IMO. IMO and Cerner announce the launch of the IMO Core CSmart app, an in-workflow offering to improve clinical documentation and problem list management in Cerner Millennium. The presenters will review the challenges and bottlenecks of clinical documentation and problem list management, discuss how streamlined workflows within Cerner Millennium can reduce clinician HIT burden, and demonstrate how IMO Core CSmart can help clinicians document with ease and specificity, improve HCC coding, and make problem lists more relevant. Additional sessions will be offered on November 17 and December 1.

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

GoCheck raises $10 million in a funding round led by Hatteras Venture Partners and Pisgah Fund. The company’s digital vision screening technology is used globally by 6,500 pediatric teams.

Leonard Green & Partners sells membership-based healthcare provider network MDVIP, which it acquired four years ago, to Goldman Sachs and Charlesbank Capital.

Amazon Care Director Kristen Helton tells HLTH attendees that the online retailer will expand its Amazon Care service for employers to several new cities. Patients can access virtual primary and urgent care, as well as several in-home services. The company plans to expand to 20 cities by 2022.

Announcements and Implementations

Occupational healthcare company Marathon Health launches a virtual primary care service for employees that includes telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, and care navigation and coordination.

Puerto Rico-based telemedicine company Tu Salud Virtual adopts GenieMD’s white-label remote patient monitoring technology.

GeniusRx adds telemedicine and cost transparency and savings capabilities to its online prescription delivery service.

Other

Fitness company CrossFit will launch Precision Care, a subscription-based telemedicine service that offers its members access to physicians and health coaches. CrossFit is working with personalized medicine company Wild Health to launch the program. The new service is the brainchild of new CEO Eric Roza, who is looking to help the company add healthier elements to its brand of hard-core workouts.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 10/18/21

Top News

Marley Medical announces the launch of its membership-based virtual primary care clinic for patients with chronic conditions alongside a $9 million seed funding round.

Company co-founders Chris Hogg, David Hubanks, and Joe Slavinsky (not pictured) all spent between five and 10 years in executive leadership positions at Propeller Health, a developer of smart inhalers acquired by ResMed in 2019 for $225 million.

Webinars

October 28 (Thursday) 1 ET. “A New Streamlined Approach to Documentation and Problem List Management in Cerner Millennium.” Sponsor: Intelligent Medical Objects. Presenters: Deepak Pillai, MD, physician informaticist, IMO; David Arco, product manager, IMO; Nicole Douglas, senior product marketing manager, IMO. IMO and Cerner announce the launch of the IMO Core CSmart app, an in-workflow offering to improve clinical documentation and problem list management in Cerner Millennium. The presenters will review the challenges and bottlenecks of clinical documentation and problem list management, discuss how streamlined workflows within Cerner Millennium can reduce clinician HIT burden, and demonstrate how IMO Core CSmart can help clinicians document with ease and specificity, improve HCC coding, and make problem lists more relevant. Additional sessions will be offered on November 17 and December 1.

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

Announcements and Implementations

A $2.1 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism will enable Jaspr Health to pilot its digital suicide care platform in primary care clinics, including patients with alcohol use disorders. The company’s technology is already in use in Allina Health’s emergency departments across Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Groups Recover Together, an opioid addiction treatment services company, develops an app to enable its members access to online appointment scheduling, educational content, treatment planning, group therapy, payment capabilities, and forms, and outreach.

Research and Innovation

An NPR poll conducted in August and September has found that 42% of respondents said someone in their household had used telehealth, and 82% of those patients were satisfied with the online appointment. Despite the high level of satisfaction, however, 64% would have preferred an in-person appointment. Providers like concierge medical practice owner Rebekah Bernard, MD prefer in-person appointments, too: “You may be missing that opportunity to be talking with the doctor who’s going to say, ‘Hey, by the way, I see you haven’t had your mammogram or you haven’t had your pap [smear].'”

Other

HLTH is in full swing in Boston. I think it’s interesting that Walmart EVP of Health & Wellness Cheryl Pegus, MD took the stage. You have to wonder if she’s also interested in shopping around for add-on solutions or outright acquisition targets. The Jonathan Bush / Glen Tullman session, “A Tale of Two Health Tech Mavericks,” seems to have generated the most buzz thus far.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Why we do what we do (Nordic)
• Dynamic Intelligent Routing Delivers the Right Message to the Right Person at the Right Time – No Matter the Setting (PerfectServe)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 10/13/21

Top News

Pediatric behavioral healthcare company Elemy raises $219 million in a Series B funding round, bringing the startup’s total funding to $323 million and its valuation to $1.15 billion. Elemy, which specializes in autism, has developed software to help match pediatric patients with therapists who provide in-home and virtual care, and for those therapists to track care progress.

HIStalk Practice Musings

First spell check, then auto correct, now this: Perhaps I’m late to the AI-enabled writing party, but when Microsoft notified me of an extension that could help me strengthen my spelling, grammar, and style across documents, e-mail, and the Web, all I could think of was how homogenous writing styles will become if users lean on these types of crutches. Not to mention the fact that this tool will only hasten society’s text-enabled tendency to eschew proper spelling and grammar. End rant.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

NowRx, which boasts same-day telemedicine and online prescription delivery services, hopes to raise $73 million using SeedInvest’s equity crowdfunding capabilities. The company will have raised over $100 million once the Series C round closes.

Government and Politics

ONC expands its United States Core Data for Interoperability standards program to enable federal partners like CMS and CDC to establish and use interoperable, agency-specific datasets beyond those available through the initial USCDI program.

Research and Innovation

Consumer preference for online appointment booking continues to increase year over year, according to the latest Patient Access Survey Report from Kyruus, as does consumer propensity to research healthcare organizations and providers online before scheduling visits. When considering providers, consumers place the most importance on insurance acceptance, clinical expertise, organization reputation, and appointment availability.

A study of 314 physicians working in an ambulatory care network over a two-year period finds that they were more likely to leave their jobs if they spent less time in the EHR than their presumably more satisfied peers, particularly on inbox management. The study’s authors suggest further study is needed to understand this counterintuitive result. (I’d add that if a physician is spending less time in the EHR than his or her peers, perhaps he is less engaged with patients, colleagues, and company culture, which makes his departure not that surprising.) They also recommend that prospectively tracking EHR use metrics may help to identify physicians likely to depart who would “benefit from early, team-based, targeted interventions.”

Other

Premier Patient Healthcare notifies the state of Maine’s attorney general’s office of a data breach that occurred in April when a formerly employed executive accessed its computer system and obtained a file containing PHI. A separate notice on Premier’s website implicates technology vendor Wiseman Innovations, implying that a former executive and vendor employee were involved in the illegal file access.

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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