Weekender 9/10/21

Weekly News Recap

• Intelerad acquires Insignia.
• Sanford Health (SD) will use a $350 million donation to develop a virtual care center.
• Period and ovulation tracking app vendor Flo raises $50 million, valuing the company at $800 million.
• TransUnion is reportedly seeking a buyer for its TransUnion Healthcare business for up to $2 billion.
• Invitae announces that it will acquire Ciitizen for $325 million.
• A review finds that 34 of 36 systems that use AI for breast cancer screening are less accurate than a single radiologist.
• The VA renews its CliniComp contract for another five years.
• Four of six traveling nurses at a California hospital quit on their first day when faced with using Meditech, which the hospital is replacing with Epic.
• Baxter announces that it will acquire Hillrom for $12.4 billion.
• Accenture acquires Gevity.
• Healthcare Triangle announces plans for an IPO that will raise up to $50 million.

Best Reader Comments

I would assume someone from Amazon would have some story about how they significantly made Providence cheaper and faster, but maybe hiring people from out of industry to shake things up is just as ineffective as outside companies shaking up healthcare. (Cynical Consumer)

Although I haven’t worked for public, for-profit companies, I’ve also had that universal experience where you start the first day, don’t know the organization, barely know a soul, and where a good argument can be made for several months that you don’t deserve to be there. That made for some really ugly first years. The executive class likes to have us convinced that they are smarter and more deserving than the rest of us. Many of them are fairly intelligent. I simply reject that someone coming from outside can just drop in and be more effective than someone who knows the company, how it operates, and what might really be going well or poorly. (CEO Supply Chain Issues)

Watercooler Talk Tidbits

I missed this from a few weeks back. Miami-based MSP Recovery, which recovers inappropriate Medicare payments for which Medicare does not have primary payment responsibility, will go public via a SPAC that will value the company at a mind-boggling $33 billion. Founder and CEO John Ruiz stands to make $23 billion in the deal, which will be the second-largest in SPAC history. MSP uses analytics to buy portfolios of claims (click the image above to enlarge), and if it succeeds in collecting a payment, the insurer that overpaid gets half, lawyers get 40%, and MSP keeps the rest. Ruiz’s own law firm represents MSP, so it takes half of the 40% legal cut as well. MSP’s pitch deck shows a $37 million loss this year that it says will balloon to more than $5 billion in profit by 2026.

VA OIG finds that a Massachusetts VA hospital’s failure to follow proper procedures allowed a veteran to lie dead in a stairwell 20 yards from his room for a month before being found. The stairwell wasn’t searched because even though it is on VA grounds, it is operated and maintained by a homeless services group. OIG also notes that the veteran was a resident rather than a patient, so “missing patient” rules weren’t followed.

Jackson Health System (FL) places a NICU nurse on leave after she posts photos and seemingly derogatory comments of a baby whose birth defect exposed its intestines.

In Spain, a chance DNA test reveals that hospital employees accidentally switched two newborns after their birth 19 years ago. A 19-year-old is suing the regional health department after a child support complaint resulted in DNA tests that indicated she had been raised by the other girl’s parents.

A North Carolina doctor fresh off a seven-day ICU shift caring for COVID-19 patients stands by his Facebook bluntness toward unvaccinated people, saying, “There are some complete idiots who when shown death in the face will just cling to their crazy belief that it’s a conspiracy or they’re trying to use the vaccine to do mind control or whatever, or just some jackass theories … even some of the ones who are dying, are like, I still don’t believe this is a thing. How can you not believe this is a thing when you’re dying?”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, when asked by a reporter about a COVID-19 inpatient who was caught having sex in the hospital, gamely responds, “I would say generally, regardless of the COVID status, that kind of thing shouldn’t generally be part of visiting hours.”

In Case You Missed It

• News 9/10/21
• EPtalk by Dr. Jayne 9/9/21
• Readers Write: What’s Fueling Interest in Healthcare ERP?
• Readers Write: Embracing a Smarter Future in Healthcare
• Readers Write: How Payers Can Leverage Data Pipelines for 5-Star Results
• HIStalk Interviews Jay Colfer, CEO, Fivos Health
• News 9/8/21
• HIStalk Interviews Stephen Hau, CEO, Newfire Global Partners
• HIStalk Polls 2007-2012
• Monday Morning Update 9/6/21

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