News 2/18/22

The Department of Justice will file a lawsuit to block the proposed $13 billion sale of Change Healthcare to UnitedHealth Group, a report says, citing two insiders.

Dealreporter says the sources told it that DOJ cannot identify any divestitures that would ease its anti-competitive concerns.

Change Healthcare reportedly considered selling its payment integrity business to avoid regulatory intervention.

Reader Comments

From Fungible: “Re: HIMSS Accelerate. I can’t figure out how to see the activity there. All I see is promotional posts from HIMSS. Can you ask readers if they are using it?” Same for me. It lists a ton of members, but I don’t see any posts, but then again I’m not following anyone and that might be limiting what I see. Still, even Half Wolf hasn’t posted much of anything. I checked maybe 100 user profiles and I would suspect they were auto-added or something since I didn’t see any that had completed their profile or posted any messages. If you’re using Accelerate, please explain what you’re doing on there. You would think it would be lit up given that HIMSS22 is 25 days away.

From Boris Badenov: “Re: [technology company name omitted]. Has cancelled all meetings and has asked all employees to turn over documents with [EHR vendor] screenshots and other IP by the end of the week. Apparently somehow the company has managed to delete records at an unspecified customer and has caused significant damage.” Unverified, so I’ve omitted both company names. The only way I see this happening is that the tech company was using some kind of scripting and screen-scraping tool that ran amok and deleted data by mimicking user interaction, which the original vendor would not be able to detect or prevent. Cancelling meetings and seizing IP seems odd.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Sponsor reminder: tell me what you’ll be doing at ViVE and HIMSS22 and I’ll include you in my conference guides. You’re spending piles of money to participate in the conference, so you might as well publicize it.

Webinars

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

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Specialty EHR, PM, and RCM vendor ModMed acquires Klara, which offers a virtual care and collaboration platform, for $200 million. ModMed is the former Modernizing Medicine, which eliminated and conjoined some of its letters in December 2021 in hopes of “capturing the company’s mission and reflecting its modern user experience.” I’m not sure it actually worked.

SimpleHealth, which offers subscription-based birth control prescribing services and products via a $15 annual online consultation and low-cost prescriptions, acquires birth control pill reminder vendor Emme. 

CompuGroup Medical acquires anatomic pathology system vendor AP Easy.

Medication and computer cart manufacturer Capsa Healthcare acquires mobile computer workstation vendor Humanscale Healthcare.

Sales

• Four companies choose Canvas Medical’s EMR and healthcare payments platform for digital health developers: Patina (primary care for adults 65+), Circulo (services for physical and behavioral health), UpLift (mental health), and Vivante (digestive health and wellness).
• Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center will analyze claims data from LexisNexis Risk Solutions to identify the needs of underserved communities and choosing optimal service locations.
• Vanderbilt University Medical Center chooses Biofourmis to support a study in which cancer patients will be monitored at home instead of the usual 7-10 day hospitalization following administration of an oncology drug. The system will continuously collect heart rate, temperature, oxygenation levels, and respiratory rate and will measure blood pressure every 4-6 hours, with the results presented on a notification-powered clinician dashboard.
• Healthcare API vendor Particle Health replaces its homegrown master patient index with Verato Universal MPI.
• NextGen Healthcare chooses Verato Universal MPI to incorporate patient matching into its Health Data Hub to integrate information from disparate EHRs.
• The US Social Security Administration contracts with Cerner to electronically transfer disability claims information the EHRs of its customers.
• Insurer Florida Blue, a subsidiary of GuideWell, automates prior authorization approval via AI-powered clinical reviews that are powered by Olive’s AI platform.

People

Industry long-timer Tomas Gregorio, MBA (University Hospital) joins Wellforce as SVP of IT operations.

Impact Advisors promotes Liam Bouchier to VP.

Streamline Health promotes Ben Stilwell, EMBA to president and CEO of ite EValuator Solutions business, also hiring Amy Sebero (NThrive) as chief growth officer for that unit.

Announcements and Implementations

Black Book names 50 recently funded emerging solutions that are challenging the healthcare technology status quo, evaluated by 4,000 healthcare respondents who scored 377 solutions on 18 KPIs.

The Marion County Health Department (WV) goes live on Epic. The health department first experienced Epic when WVU Medicine set up COVID-19 vaccination clinics in Marion County in early 2021.

The Hartford business paper profiles clinical data transformation platform vendor Diameter Health, which grew headcount by 25% last year and expects to hit 100 employees next year. I interviewed CEO Eric Rosow a couple of weeks ago.

Government and Politics

Politico reports that the VA’s pilot of a technology that speeds up benefits decision-making – cutting the average wait time from 100 days to 21 – is being criticized by labor unions that don’t want the jobs of 60,000 VA Benefits Administration placed at risk.

KHN reports that counties and cities that oppose COVID mitigation measures are forming their own health departments and contracting the work out to for-profit companies.

Other

Blind people who received a “bionic eye” implant from Second Sight Medical Products from 2013 to 2019 to gain a small amount of low-resolution vision see their world go dark as the company abandons the technology and approaches bankruptcy after an exodus of its executives and a sale of its assets at auction. Second Sight’s 350 users had its technology installed at a cost of up to $500,000, many of whom complained about poor results. The company is moving on to brain implants.

Sponsor Updates

• Availity launches Availity Essentials Plus, a low-cost subscription service that gives providers online access to more payers through its HIPAA-compliant Essentials platform.
• Fortified Health Security hires Sarah McNulty as executive assistant.
• Optimum Healthcare IT publishes a case study in analyzing and streamlining EpicCare Ambulatory error queues at PeaceHealth.
• NeuroFlow creates a video describing how it helps health plans reduce the costs of care by giving them better behavioral health insights.
• Medicomp Systems releases a new episode of its Tell Me Where It Hurts Podcast featuring CEO Dave Lareau.
• RCx Rules recaps its 2021 success, which includes adding 25 customers and strengthening its HCC coding capabilities by adding Chart Prep Engine.
• Netsmart launches the EveryDayMatters Podcast.
• Meditech announces its HIMSS22 activities.
• Nordic releases a new podcast, “How interoperability and cloud transformations can support healthcare organizations.”

Blog Posts

• Importance of Nurses Recognizing Nurses – Today and Always (Get Well)
• Brush Up on Dental Health IT (Healthcare Growth Partners)
• 3 Ways That Patient Education Improves Safety and Quality of Care (Healthwise)
• An Epic Community Connect Program: M&A without the A (Impact Advisors)
• Continuing the power of One Word (Intelligent Medical Objects)
• Important Promoting Interoperability Requirements for 2022 (Medhost)
• Overcoming HCC Challenges in 2022: Provider Burnout, Staffing Challenges, and Coding Gaps (RCx Rules)
• Healthcare in 2022: The fluid way forward (Meditech)
• PTA Reimbursement 2022: A Look at the Final Fee Schedule (MWTherapy)
• What is patient engagement to a Patient Access Center Manager? A CEO’s primer (Nuance)

Black Book Research’s list of the 50 top-rated emerging health IT vendors for 2022 includes the following HIStalk Sponsors:

• Bamboo Health
• Enlace Health
• Healthcare Triangle·
• Redox
• Symplr

Contacts

Mr. H, Lorre, Jenn, Dr. Jayne.
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