The Illustra solution appears to be a model wherein the Illustra staff map or translate your data into their algorithms.…
News 6/25/25
Top News
Ambient documentation vendor Abridge raises $300 million in a Series E round, boosting its valuation to $5.3 billion.
The company raised a $250 million Series D round just five months ago at a valuation of $850 million.
Abridge’s annual revenue has been reported as $175 million.
Reader Comments
From Justa Bill: “Re: insurers fixing prior authorization. I can’t wait until they’re done so that I can get my medically unreasonable denials in real time.”
From Pinky: “Re: AI taking jobs. It will also enhance or create some healthcare positions.” Probably so, although most of those jobs will be pretty small in number and will require specialized education or experience, such as clinical informaticists, data architects, compliance leads, and cybersecurity experts. Consulting could go either way, where AI might replace some entry-level analysis and document work, but top performers will use it to rise even faster. We’re already seeing this with attorneys, where the junior folks are using AI to analyze documents and mine the firm’s vast data assets to perform higher-level work, and with investment pros who use AI to monitor markets and parse sentiment in real time. Regardless, surveys show that executives in all lines of work expect AI to lower their costs by allowing them to eliminate employees, a self-fulfilling prophecy that will make companies look successful regardless because they have enough fat to work around the dearly and forcibly departed.
From Cut Me Mick: “Re: Ascension acquiring AmSurg. How much overlap exists in the markets they each serve?” Not much, based on ChatGPT’s analysis of the maps I sent it. AmSurg locations are in red, Ascension hospitals in blue (note that I showed only the eastern part of the country. The biggest areas of new opportunity are in Central and South Florida, California, New York, New Jersey, and California, areas where AmSurg is strong and Ascension is absent. Indiana, Alabama, and Tennessee show more overlap that would be conducive to vertical integration. But if Ascension wants to compete as a value-based care challenger without trying to build or buy hospitals in the back yards of entrenched competitors, those AmSurg-heavy states offer better upside in high-growth, high-margin markets. I think we can skip over the obligatory “mission” and “compassion” part of the announcement’s verbiage and assume that Ascension saw the chance to buy higher-performing, already-scaled assets to diversify beyond legacy hospitals. Recall also that AmSurg was until recently under the leaky umbrella of hospital physician services outsourcer Envision Healthcare, whose bankruptcy and asset stripping under the leveraged buyout oversight of PE firm KKR ran up $7 billion in debt for Envision and the forced sale of its only real surviving asset to Ascension at about half the typical per-center cost. UPDATE: I’ve updated the graphic above to show more area. And I blame ChatGPT for drawing it to incorrectly look like Wisconsin is west of Austin, TX
HIStalk Announcements and Requests
Welcome to new HIStalk Platinum Sponsor VitalChat. Vitalchat offers a flexible audio and video platform for powering virtual nursing and intelligent hospitals — bringing the right presence into the room at the right moment — without adding complexity to care. Whether it’s a virtual nurse providing reassurance after surgery, monitoring vitals remotely, or coordinating with the bedside team in real time, the platform enables care that feels connected, responsive and organized. With powerful, behind-the-scenes technology and an intuitive, clinician-friendly design, Vitalchat helps hospitals extend their teams, support their patients, and deliver meaningful touchpoints throughout the care journey. Thanks to VitalChat for supporting HIStalk.
Sponsored Events and Resources
None scheduled soon. Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.
Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock
Therapy EHR vendor Prompt Health acquires PredictionHealth, which offers an ambient AI scribe for therapists. PredictionHealth’s co-founders Pedro Teixeira, MD, PhD and Ravi Atreya, MD, PhD met while earning dual MD and biomedical informatics degrees at Vanderbilt.
Remote care company CoachCare acquires MD Revolution, which offers remote care software. Investor-backed CoachCare, which was founded in 2013 by former private equity investors, has made nine recent acquisitions. MD Revolution was formed in 2011 to help providers bill Medicare for monthly chronic care condition management services.
SuperDial, which develops AI agents that manage provider phone calls to insurers, raises $15 million in a Series A funding round. Its platform supports benefits verification, prior authorization, claims follow-up, and credentialing.
Population health management technology vendor Jaan Health secures $25 million in funding.
Shares of telehealth provider Hims & Hers drop 35% after Novo Nordisk halts Wegovy sales to the company, which it accuses of illegally selling cheaper compounded versions of its weight loss drug alongside its own branded product. The CEO of Hims & Hers accuses Novo of trying to force it to steer patients toward the branded product.
Sales
- Inspira Health selects DrFirst’s system migration platform to transition medication data from Oracle Health to Epic.
People
Symplr names Theresa Meadows, MS, RN (Cook Children’s Health Care System) as CIO in residence.
Leidos hires Andrew Burchett, DO (Meditech) as VP/chief technology and innovation officer.
Announcements and Implementations
FinThrive announces Fusion, an RCM platform, and will deploy agentic AI digital agents to enhance its RCM products.
Virtual care infrastructure company Wheel embeds Amazon Pharmacy’s medication access solution into its white-labeled solutions for digital health companies and health plans.
Government and Politics
A GAO report warns that the VA’s Oracle Health stalled rollout has left its schedulers juggling multiple VistA versions as well as the new system. GAO says that the VA’s May 2024 modernization timeline is “not reliable” by the GAO and has not been updated with a new plan. The VA cancelled its $624 million scheduling contract with Leidos and Epic in 2018 after three years when it chose Cerner.
HHS lists the details of the newly announced pledge of some health insurers to streamline prior authorization:
- Standardize submissions by using FHIR.
- Reduce the number of services that require PA.
- Honor existing authorizations during transitions of care.
- Enhance transparency of authorization decisions and appeals.
- Provide real-time responses for most requests by 2027.
- Have all clinical denials reviewed by a medical professional.
Taiwan accuses China-sponsored “cyber armies” of launching cyberattacks on its hospitals to humiliate the country, which Taiwan says is in preparation for an eventual takeover.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. tells House members that he wants every American wearing a health tracker within four years, with HHS planning a massive ad campaign to promote adoption. He cites continuous glucose monitors, which are priced at $100 to $300 per month, as a bargain for weight loss compared to GLP-1 drugs, and hints that federal subsidies may follow. An example I found for non-diabetics is Dexcom’s Stelo, which costs $80 per month for 14-day patches that pair with a smartphone.
Sponsor Updates
- Kyruus Health team members volunteer with Cradles to Crayons Massachusetts during their Community Day.
- CereCore earns five stars and a “best practice’ designation for its Meditech hosting from the Securance Consulting technology assessment firm.
- Rhapsody names Shannon Matthews manager of brand and communications.
- Black Book Research survey-takers rank Waystar as the top end-to-end RCM software vendor for large hospitals and health systems, and academic medical centers with clinics and outreach; and TruBridge the top vendor for small and rural hospitals.
- Waystar releases the results of a new study titled “AI in Healthcare Payments Software: A Strategic Imperative.”
- UZ Brussel University Hospital in Belgium selects enterprise imaging from Agfa HealthCare.
- Artera releases a new study titled “How Vanderbilt University Hospital Tackled Readmission Rates By Leveraging Artera for Post-Discharge Communication.”
- Clearsense and Nordic will collaborate to offer an end-to-end solution for application portfolio management.
- The latest episode of Censinet’s “Risk Never Sleeps” podcast features Siskin Hospital CIO and CISO Shane Pilcher.
- Clinical Architecture releases a new episode of “The Informonster Podcast” titled “Unpacking AI and Interoperability Trends with Joerg Schwarz.”
Blog Posts
- Rethinking the EHR: Behavioral Health at the Center of FQHC Technology (Netsmart)
- Inpatient vs. Outpatient Facility Coding: Breaking Down the Key Differences (Nym)
- How Better Job Descriptions Can Help Senior Living and Post-Acute Organizations Hire Faster and Smarter (Symplr)
- Preparing Your Staff for a Cerner-to-Epic Conversion in 5 Key Steps (Optimum Healthcare IT)
- Empower clinicians and patients with AI in primary care (Wolters Kluwer Health)
- Healthcare Cybersecurity Expert on Tactics for Rural Resilience (CereCore)
- A different kind of SPA: How Altera Cloud helps bring peace of mind to organizations (Altera Digital Health)
- CloudWave and BlueOrange Compliance: Setting a New Standard in Healthcare Cybersecurity (CloudWave)
- What to Know About Your Transition from Windows 10 to 11 (CTG)
- How to Attract and Retain Millennial and Gen Z Healthcare Technology Talent (Direct Recruiters)
Contacts
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I use a continuous glucose monitor, but I’m not sure I see what the weight loss payoff Kennedy imagines from it might be. As a diabetic it’s great to let me know if I need more insulin or a snack a little sooner than my body lets me know. But it didn’t sound like he meant just for diabetics.
Seems like there is a flaw in your Ascension analysis. You indicate Ascension has no hospitals further west than Wisconsin. Ascension has a significant presence in Austin (Seton).
You are right, thanks for the correction. My ChatGPT trust is eroded since it drew Austin as east of Wisconsin, which I should have caught. I think it got confused trying to overlap different maps.
Ha – definitely some confused overlap, as Wisconsin and Mississippi appear to be on the west coast. Everything farther west than that, into the ocean with you.
I look forward to Chief Eugenicist having access to everyone’s medical data. Couple that with the determination to get rid of the ACA and Medicaid and we have a government program with the not-so-stealth end goal of killing off the “undesirables”.
I tried a few wearables years ago. The novelty quickly wore off and they wound up in the drawer. Sleep tracking especially puzzles me. I know if I’ve slept well or not…I don’t need verification from some device.
I don’t totally hate the wearables idea, though I’m not sure what he’s going on about continuous glucose monitors. My insurance used to reimburse $100-200 if you proved you went to the gym 3 days per week. During the pandemic, they replaced that with a program connected to a fitbit/apple watch, where they reimburse you based on a number of health metrics (steps, heart rate minutes, amount of sleep, food tracking, etc). You can’t improve what you don’t track, and encouraging me to track I think did a huge amount to improve my health since then (I’m down 40lbs from 2020, no longer have high blood pressure/high cholesterol). The $30-50 check every 3 months is also pretty cool. No idea if this program is actually improving people’s health and saving them money though.
In a highly polarized political environment and possible recession, I can’t imagine that RFK JR will make any kind of progress on this one
Vitalchat is proud to join as a HISTalk Sponsor!
HISTalk has always been a trusted voice in healthcare IT, and Vitalchat is honored to support its mission. We look forward to connecting with this vibrant community, sharing our journey, and learning from others who are transforming care through technology.
Our relationship with HISTalk runs deep. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, I founded Co-Vents, a not-for-profit organization focused on refurbishing and deploying ventilators to the areas in greatest need. It was a feature on HISTalk that directly led to the funding of that mission—ultimately helping save thousands of lives during one of the most critical moments in modern healthcare history.
Now, with Vitalchat, we’re focused on the next frontier: using AI-powered virtual care to support overburdened clinical teams, enhance patient safety, and enable truly ambient, proactive care from anywhere.
Stay tuned—big things ahead.
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