News 3/8/21

Top News

Investor Scott Vertrees joins Heal as CEO. Vertrees, who has advised the company over the last several months, replaces Nick Desai, who co-founded the app-based house call and telemedicine company with wife Renee Dua, MD in 2015. Desai remains a shareholder, and Dua the company’s CMO.

Heal has over the last year expanded into several more states and raised $100 million from Humana, bringing its total raised to $200 million.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Tallahassee, FL-based health data exchange vendor HIE Networks rebrands to Centralis Health.

App-based house call company DispatchHealth raises $200 million in a Series D round of funding that brings its total raised to $417 million.

Announcements and Implementations

Behavioral health organization George Junior Republic (PA) implements the SmartCare EHR from Streamline Healthcare Solutions.

Government and Politics

In Kansas, Governor Laura Kelly allocates $3 million in federal funding to Community Care Network of Kansas, is helping its network of clinics acquire remote patient monitoring devices so that patients with chronic conditions may be cared for virtually.

Other

Cochise Eye & Laser (AZ) notifies patients of a January ransomware attack that encrypted its patient scheduling and billing software, and deleted scheduled appointments. The clinic was forced to revert to paper-based processes for nearly a month while they rebuilt their systems and installed an offsite backup.

Behavioral health and addiction treatment EHR vendor Sigmund Software will award $500 scholarships to five winners who plan to or are already pursuing degrees related to healthcare and/or IT. Applications and essays are due June 1.

OrthoVirginia and Allergy Centers of Richmond are recovering from presumably separate cybersecurity incidents in late February that took down their phone systems and servers.

The University of Notre Dame’s student magazine finds the funny in the university’s COVID-19 testing protocols, recounting the escapades of “Two Spit Nick” and the black market he developed for COVID-free saliva.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic welcomes Saran Sonaisamy (Cognizant) as director of cloud transformation and cybersecurity.
• PerfectServe publishes a new case study featuring the University of Tennessee Medical Center, “EMR Embedded Communication Improves Efficiency.”

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 3/3/21

Top News

STAT reports that Care Medical has filed paperwork to operate in 17 additional states, bringing its total to at least 23. The company powers the Amazon Care virtual and house-call clinic offered to Amazon employees in Seattle. It seems to exist solely for the online retailer’s purposes, leading to the conjecture that Amazon may be expanding its Care services beyond Washington State.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

LLR Partners makes an undisclosed investment in Azalea Health, which had previously raised $13.5 million.

Optum will acquire Atrius Health, the largest independent physician network in Massachusetts.

SpineZone raises $12 million in a Series A round led by Polaris Partners and Providence Ventures. The digital health company offers virtual physical therapy regimens for sufferers of back and neck pain, plus in-person care at eight affiliated clinics in California.

People

Jeremy Jackson, MD (Boston Consulting Group) joins Apollo Medical Holdings in the new role of chief of staff.

Announcements and Implementations

Online prescription delivery and telemedicine company Ro will begin offering in-home COVID-19 vaccinations for homebound patients in New York. Ro has partnered with Uber to provide free rides for healthcare workers. The company will use software from WorkPath, which it acquired earlier this year, to manage appointment scheduling and reminders.

In Maine, Spectrum Healthcare Partners implements NextGen’s Orthopedic Suite across its orthopedic division.

Brooklyn-based Oula opens its first prenatal clinic, adding in-person care to virtual care offered through its app. Co-founders and moms-to-be Adrianne Nickerson and Elaine Purcell met while working at Deloitte, and have experience working at providers like Northwell Health and Mount Sinai Beth Israel, and vendors such as Privia Health. 

The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics will implement Surgimate’s surgical scheduling software at its 60 office locations across Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC.

North American Partners in Anesthesia selects Athenahealth’s AthenaIDX RCM software and services.

Government and Politics

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis launches an investigation into One Medical’s COVID-19 vaccination practices after NPR uncovers that it provided vaccines to ineligible patients, including some with ties to company leadership. Several public health departments have since severed vaccination ties with the concierge primary care company. The investigation will also dig into whether or not One Medical has used its vaccine registration platform for data-mining and membership-conversion purposes.

Donna Monticone pleads guilty to tampering with a consumer product after a federal investigation finds she had been stealing vials of fentanyl from her employer, Yale Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility clinic, for several months. To hide her theft, Monticone replaced the fentanyl with saline, despite the fact that she knew the fluid would be used as anesthesia in upcoming procedures.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Data Security Best-practices for Remote Workers in 2021 (AdvancedMD)
• What’s FHIR and How Will it Drive Healthcare Interoperability? (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 3/1/21

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MTBC reports Q4 revenue of $32 million, double that of Q4 2019; and annual revenue of $105 million, a 63% increase over the previous year.

MTBC CEO Stephen Snyder attributes the record numbers to the company’s acquisitions of EHR and practice management software vendor CareCloud and Meridian Medical Management, a former GE Healthcare IT business. Former CareCloud CEO Ken Comée joined AI/automation technology company Aible as president shortly after CareCloud was acquired in January 2020.

MTBC will change its name to CareCloud, effective March 29.

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, “Maximizing the Value of Digital Initiatives with Enterprise Provider Data Management,” sponsored by Phynd.

People

Traci Dunn (McKesson) joins VillageMD as chief human resources officer.

Announcements and Implementations

E-consult company RubiconMD adds COVID-19 vaccine experts to its network of specialists available to primary care physicians.

Other

The Delphos Public Library will soon offer patrons at-home COVID-19 test kits through a partnership with the Ohio Department of Public Health. The kits also include telemedicine sessions provided through EMed. Library Director Kelly Rist says the library, which is “more than just four walls” and “knows how to distribute things,” is excited to offer the resource.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• Let your physician builders build (or architects architect) (Nordic)
• Coordinating COVID-19 Vaccination: 3 Essential Elements (PerfectServe)
• Use Patient Education to Spread the Word About COVID-19 Vaccines (Healthwise)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 2/24/21

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One Medical comes under fire after leaked internal documents show that the membership-based primary care company has let ineligible patients – some with ties to company leadership – receive COVID-19 vaccinations before other, higher-risk patients.

Leaked documents also show that, in January, One Medical declined to adjust its appointment-booking system to screen for vaccination eligibility, saying the task was too onerous to complete within the necessary timeframe. It also failed at some of its locations to verify vaccination eligibility at the point of care.

Several local health departments have rescinded One Medical’s vaccine supply after learning about the line-jumping, which has occurred at clinics in several states. 

Webinars

None scheduled in the coming weeks. Previous webinars are on our YouTube channel. Contact Lorre to present your own.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Behavioral health IT vendor CentralReach acquires Avail Support, an Irish company that offers evidence-based, digital content management and data collection software focused on patients with cognitive disabilities.

People

Carbon Health hires Claire Hough (Lyte) as CTO.

K. Warren Volker, MD (Intermountain Healthcare) joins Brown & Toland Physicians as CMO.

ExamMed names Jeff Fusile (Anthem) president.

MTBC promotes Karl Johnson to chief growth officer and Wes Stolp to SVP of business development.

Announcements and Implementations

Compass Medical (MA) integrates CareSimple’s remote patient monitoring technology with its EClinicalWorks EHR.

Skylight Health Group will leverage AWS to aggregate data across its clinics. It acquired

Other

It looks like the Tignish community on Canada’s Prince Edward Island has, after 16 months, finally found its replacement doctor: Peter Entwhistle, MD and his wife (and nurse) Sheri-Anne, began working at the Tignish Co-op Health Centre earlier this month. Readers may remember that patients in Tignish had been relying on telemedicine visits with a doctor in Ireland while they awaited a replacement physician. Entwhistle, who says Tignish (which has a population of 719) is a great place to work, has likely been following the province’s efforts to implement an enterprise EHR. It has signed an $8.4 million contract with Telus Health for EHR implementations that will start in physician offices this summer.

LinkedIn offers free job postings for healthcare organizations, pharmacies, and governments looking to hire support staff for COVID-19 vaccination efforts.

Small-practice physicians in Maine are all but excluded from the state’s vaccination efforts because they can’t vaccinate 1,000 eligible patients per week as required by Maine CDC. Like many independent physicians across the country, they feel that their older, more vulnerable patients would prefer vaccination via their local physician, rather than at a mass vaccination site that may present scheduling and logistical challenges. Maine CDC representatives say the goal right now is to get as many shots into as many arms as possible, as quickly as possible.

Michigan Avenue Immediate Care in Chicago issues an apology and refund to the 20 patients it insisted pay an upfront $195 consultation fee before administering their COVID-19 vaccinations. The City of Chicago has stressed that patients should not be denied what are supposed to be free vaccinations because of their inability to pay any type of administrative fee, and that vaccine supplies may be withheld from facilities that do so.

Sponsor Updates

• AdvancedMD shares the product enhancements that will be made available during its Winter 2021 Release.

Blog Posts

• How Healthcare Leaders are Leveraging Patient Engagement Software to Distribute COVID-19 Vaccines (AdvancedMD)
• Engaging hard-to-reach patients (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 2/22/21

Top News

Conversion Labs rebrands to LifeMD to reflect its transition from performance marketing to direct-to-consumer telemedicine and online prescription delivery. It will soon launch a subscription-based, concierge primary care telemedicine service.

Webinars

February 24 (Wednesday) 1 ET. “Maximizing the Value of Digital Initiatives with Enterprise Provider Data Management.” Sponsor: Phynd Technologies. Presenters: Tom White, founder and CEO, Phynd Technologies; Adam Cherrington, research director, KLAS Research. Health systems can derive great business value and competitive advantage by centrally managing their provider data. A clear roadmap and management solution can solve problems with fragmented data, workflows, and patient experiences and support operational efficiency and delivery of a remarkable patient experience. The presenters will describe common pitfalls in managing enterprise information and digital strategy in silos, how to align stakeholders to maximize the value of digital initiatives, and how leading health systems are using best-of-breed strategies to evolve provider data management.

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

People

Carbon Health board member Russell Fradin joins the company as vice chair.

Physician network management company Wellvana Health names Jay Meyers (Anthem) CEO, Sunil Cardozo (Innovista Health Solutions) COO/CIO, and Readus Smith (Patriot Healthcare Systems) Chief Managed Care Officer. Interim CEO Worthe Holt Jr, MD has transitioned to CMO.

Announcements and Implementations

Exer Urgent Care (CA) implements Waiting Room Management software from Pomelo Health across its 19 clinics and virtual clinic.

Other

A physician and parent becomes concerned when she sees a $15 fee for PPE on a bill from her son’s pediatrician at Bayview Physicians Group. According to the group, the line item is meant to be covered by insurance – never the patient, and to help track pandemic-related expenses. And yet payers aren’t required to pay the newly coded fee. Most, including CMS, say the supplies are covered in separate supply agreements. Ethicists worry that PPE surcharges will keep uninsured patients from scheduling appointments due to the added expense. BPG, however, says it doesn’t add the fee to an uninsured patient’s bill, and doesn’t pursue fees from those insurance company has denied it.

In South Carolina, the Charleston County Public Library system will offer women access to telemedicine services from the WISE Teleheatlh Network.

Sponsor Updates

• Nordic publishes a new white paper, “2021 E/M Updates: EHR Workflow and Operational Considerations.”

Blog Posts

• Educate Your Orthopedic Patients with Human-Centered Digital Programs (Healthwise)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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