News 5/5/21

Top News

Ambulatory surgery center software vendor HST Pathways merges with Simple Admit, which offers ASC-specific patient engagement and relationship management technology.

The merger comes just seven months after Bain Capital’s majority growth investment in HST Pathways, and its concurrent merger with competitor Casetabs.

Reader Comments

From Down in the Dumps: “Aprima hack. Have you heard anything about Aprima being completely down for practices?” I’ve heard from several readers that Aprima has been down for nearly two weeks. I’ve reached out to parent company E-MDs for comment.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Sheridan Capital makes an undisclosed investment in DAS Health, a Tampa, FL-based vendor of health IT including practice management, RCM, and cybersecurity.

Groups Recover Together, a network of opioid addiction treatment providers, will use a $60 million Series C funding round to expand its brick-and-mortar reach from 12 to 15 states by the end of the year, and to enhance its existing virtual care services.

Announcements and Implementations

Visiting Nurse Association Health Group adopts Muse Healthcare’s machine learning and predictive modeling software for risk stratification of its hospice patients.

DuPage Medical Group (IL) implements Upfront Healthcare’s Visit Adherence software to help it improve patient no-show rates.

Government and Politics

White House Vaccinations Coordinator and COVID Response Team member Bechara Choucair, MD says primary care physicians will be even more important to nationwide COVID-19 vaccination efforts as the federal government shifts its focus from mass vaccination sites to more strategic efforts aimed at helping 70% of adult Americans get one shot and 160 million get both by July 4. Vaccines for children between 12 and 15 are expected to be approved for use within the next week, while vaccines for those between 2 and 11 are likely to be approved in the fall.

Other

Entrepreneur profiles ZiphyCare, an app-based house call company operating in New York and New Jersey. The startup’s model features care coordinators that perform exams and help connect patients to physicians via telemedicine from the comfort of their homes. Founder Rada Sumareva, DDS plans to expand to Florida in the next few months.

Boost Mobile adds unlimited telemedicine visits through K Health to its Unlimited Plus plan. Amwell, meanwhile, plans to add its service to smart TVs later this year. Virtual care will soon be not only ubiquitous, but may soon become the average consumer’s next utility (or utility add-on at the very least).

G-Health Enterprises adds a chance to win a Tesla to the incentives it’s offering people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. G-Health manages a network of ACOs, IPAs, and practices in Buffalo, NY.

And then there’s beer.

Sponsor Updates

• Medicomp Systems releases a new “Tell Me Where It Hurts” podcast, “Reimaging Healthcare Through NLP.”

Blog Posts

• How charge aggregation technology can help billing companies (AdvancedMD)
• Spanish Updates for Healow (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 5/3/21

Top News

Well Health Technologies will become a majority shareholder in Doctors Services Group, a billing and administration company that specializes in helping practices serve uninsured patients. Both companies are based in Canada. Well Health will fold DSG into the billing division it created last fall through its acquisition of DoctorCare.

Webinars

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

People

CareCloud promotes Steve Link to SVP of client operations and Loraine Goetsch to division president and SVP of integrations.

Announcements and Implementations

Family-focused behavioral health nonprofit Andrus selects Streamline Healthcare’s SmartCare EHR.

Covenant Physicians Partners, a physician services company based in Nashville, selects NextGen’s Enterprise Practice Management and integrated Optical Management software.

Primary care company VillageMD will leverage technology from Qure Healthcare to help its providers improve documentation, enhance patient service and care quality, standardize clinical workflows, and decrease low-value care or referrals.

Shields Health Care Group implements ERad’s radiology information system across its 30 imaging centers in New England.

Other

Jack Tarr, MD reflects on the toll COVID-19 took on his practice, FamilyCare Specialists, in Knoxville, TN. From the shift to virtual visits, to managing the “hour-to-hour tension” caring for patients during the community’s peak, Tarr says not one staff member left. “Everybody stepped up and took that responsibility to serve the community,” the 70 year-old said. “I really noticed that everybody was willing to, in a sense, put themselves at risk for the good of the community and do their job here.”

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 4/28/21

Top News

Digital therapeutics company Kaia Health raises $75 million in a Series C funding round, bringing its total raised to $123 million. The company offers its apps to patients through their employers and health plan provider networks. The startup plans to soon offer one of its apps in Europe as a prescribed treatment.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Engage Technologies Group raises $15 million, bringing its total funding to $20 million. The company develops patient-facing, brandable digital content for aesthetics, ocular, orthopedic, and dental clinics.

Healthcare marketplace, telemedicine, and online prescription delivery company Sesame announces a $24 million funding round. The company has raised nearly $50 million since launching in 2019.

Breast cancer patient navigation app developer Outcomes4Me raises $12 million in a Series A funding round. The company plans to expand to other types of cancer, and to market its product to patients in Europe.

MD Ally raises $3.5 million in seed funding. The New York-based startup has developed software that helps 911 dispatchers triage and re-route non-emergency calls to telemedicine services. Founder and CEO Shanel Fields founded the company after a five-year stint at Athenahealth. 

Announcements and Implementations

OCHIN, a nonprofit health IT support company serving more than 500 community care facilities, offers its Epic users access to AristaMD’s e-consult technology.

MedCall Advisors expands its telemedicine services to include sleep disorders, partnering with device maker Ectosense to offer patients sleep apnea monitoring from the comfort of their homes. MedCall got its start in virtual care for workers’ comp claims, then pivoted to COVID-19 testing as many employees began working remotely. The company is looking to further expand into care for allergies and behavioral health.

AZComp Technologies begins offering cloud-based hosting for its Medisoft medical billing software and practice management system.

Other

Clearity Health calls on patients in Austin, TX to upload photos of their medical bills to its soon-to-launch healthcare pricing website, effectively helping to provide accurate pricing information for medical procedures in the area.

St. John’s University profiles physician assistant student Zachary Levy and his burgeoning career as a children’s author. Levy and co-authors Melody Young and Jacob Salner, both osteopathic medicine students, have self-published the Rory’s Adventure Book series. The books follow the adventures of a red blood cell named Rory through the cardiovascular system, respiratory system, and soon the musculoskeletal system. Levy, Young, and Salner perform live readings of their books to elementary students over Zoom, accompanying them with copies of the book and an anatomy puzzle. “We are more than happy to set up live Zoom sessions with any class around the country that wants to read the Rory’s Adventure series,” Levy says. “In addition to the live reads, we answer the students’ questions. This is my highlight because I get to see in real-time the effect this book has on kids.”

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

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News 4/26/21

Top News

Privia Health Group hopes to raise $351 million in its IPO, set to take place this week. The Arlington, VA-based company also expects to raise an additional $92 million through a business arrangement with Anthem, giving it a $2.2 billion valuation.

Privia offers its member medical groups in six states and Washington, DC homegrown practice management, EHR, and other healthcare technology capable of interfacing with third-party apps.

Webinars

April 27 (Tuesday) noon ET. “The Modern Healthcare CMIO: Best Practices for Implementing Digital Innovations.” Sponsor: RingCentral, Net Health. Presenters: Nathan Gause, MD, assistant professor of medicine and orthopedic surgeon, University of Missouri Healthcare; Ehab Hanna, MD, MBA, VP/CMIO, Universal Health Services; Subra Sripada, MSIE, partner, Guidehouse; Jigar Patel, MD, VP/chief medical officer, Cerner Government Services. This panel of CMIOs will discuss how their organizations are leveraging digital medicine to improve patient outcomes and provider workflows. Topics will include AI and analytics, effectively implementing AI solutions, establishing data governance and oversight for AI-powered products, care and treatment changes on the horizon, and interoperability of large EHR systems.

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

Here’s the recording of last week’s webinar, “Is Gig Work For You?”

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

PursueCare raises $11 million in a Series A round of financing. The company offers virtual care for substance use disorders.

Telemedicine startup Ophelia raises $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Menlo Ventures. The company specializes in medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder. Co-founders Zack Gray and Mattan Griffel have taken interesting routes into healthcare: Gray studied astrophysics and philosophy at Columbia before becoming a Y Combinator-backed entrepreneur, while Griffel wrote his NYU thesis on the metaphysics of consciousness before joining the Y Combinator program.

Virtual specialty care company Summus Global raises $21 million in a Series B round led by Sator Grove Holdings. Based in New York City, Summus targets its telemedicine services to employers and partners with health systems and medical centers.

GoodRx acquires HealthiNation, a developer of educational healthcare videos that double as advertising opportunities for pharmaceutical companies.

VSS Capital invests in Ambulatory Management Solutions, which offers back-office support and services to outpatient facilities.

Announcements and Implementations

Laser Surgical Solutions (TX) selects billing software from Nobility RCM.

Piedmont Reproductive Endocrinology Group will implement Meditab Software’s FertilityEHR across its five locations.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• You’ve Invested Millions for an EHR Your Clinicians Don’t Like. Don’t Replace it – Just Fix it. (Medicomp Systems)
• CHIME Spring Forum thoughts: Create great user experiences for all the users (Nordic)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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News 4/21/21

Top News

The FCC will begin accepting applications for the second half of the COVID-19 Telehealth Program April 29. Nearly $250 million will be available for reimbursement to eligible providers who purchase and/or manage telecommunications services, information services, and connected devices related to telemedicine offerings.   

Webinars

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

People

RCM vendor Getix Health promotes Kevin Lonergan to CEO.

Mitchell Morris, MD (OptumInsight) joins EMed as COO. Former AMA President Patrice Harris, MD founded the app-enabled at-home testing company and is its CEO.

CareCloud promotes Daniel Masvidal to SVP of client success and Dwight Garvin to SVP of professional services.

Announcements and Implementations

Raintree Systems incorporates Sphere’s payment platform with its practice management software.

Government and Politics

The FQHC Telehealth Consortium in Massachusetts launches the second phase of its telemedicine expansion efforts, The consortium will allocate $4.7 million (some of which came from the FCC’s COVID-19 Telehealth Program) to help FQHCs across the state implement virtual care capabilities.

Other

Ultra-long-distance runner Stan Cottrell will celebrate his 78th birthday by kicking off The Amazing Friendship Run in Los Angeles on May 7. The Guinness World Record holder will raise money for several charities by running back-to-back marathons for 100 days, covering 3,000 miles before finishing in Washington, DC. Remote patient monitoring company 247 Health Solution will make Cottrell’s stats available to supporters in real-time via its YesDoctor platform.

Thirteen year-old Kevin Manshadi raises nearly $10,000 to provide seniors with rides to COVID-19 vaccination appointments. His father, cardiologist Ramin Manshadi, MD helped him set up the GoFundMe campaign and partner with the San Joaquin Public Health to ensure ride-share vouchers get to the seniors that need them.

Sponsor Updates

Blog Posts

• The new 21st Century Cures Act takes effect TODAY (AdvancedMD)
• The ECW Podcast: Getting the Inside Scoop on Everything Healthcare IT (EClinicalWorks)

Contacts

Jenn, Mr. H, Lorre

More news: HIStalk.

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