News 2/28/25

Top News

A White House executive order requires hospitals to publish their actual prices for 300 shoppable services online. A similar order that was issued by the Trump administration in 2019 has been largely ignored.

The Secretaries of Treasury, Labor, and HHS are tasked with enforcing compliance.

The White House projects up to $80 billion in healthcare savings and cites a report that suggests that price transparency could lower employer costs by 27% for 500 common healthcare services.

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

Please support HIStalk’s sponsors at HIMSS25 by exploring their activities and connecting with them if you’re interested.

I might be the only person who finds it grating when someone writes “Vegas” instead of the city’s actual name. Maybe they’re from Diego or Angeles. 

Sponsored Events and Resources

Live Webinar: March 4 (Tuesday) noon ET. “Securing a competitive edge in value-based care with AI: Data-driven strategies for enhancing returns across MA, ACO and Commercial programs.” Sponsors: Navina, AMGA. Presenters: Dana McCalley, MBA, VP of value-based care, Navina; Ron Rockwood, executive director of value-based care, Jefferson City Medical Group; Jonathan Meyers, CEO, Seldon Health Advisors. As value-based care models evolve, healthcare organizations must leverage AI to stay competitive and drive better financial and clinical outcomes. This webinar offers data-driven strategies for improving risk adjustment accuracy, optimizing risk stratification, and streamlining clinical and administrative workflows. You’ll walk away with proven techniques for measuring and quantifying the impact of your value-based care initiatives across your organization

Live Webinar: March 20 (Thursday) noon ET. “Enhancing Patient Experience: Digital Accessibility Legal Requirements in Healthcare.” Sponsor: TPGi. Presenters: Mark Miller, director of sales, TPGi; David Sloan, PhD, MSc, chief accessibility officer, TPGi; Kristina Launey, JD, labor and employment litigation and counseling partner, Seyfarth Shaw LLP. For patients with disabilities, inaccessible technology can mean the difference between timely, effective care and unmet healthcare needs. This could include accessible patient portals, telehealth services, and payment platforms. Despite a new presidential administration, requirements for Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have not changed. While enforcement may unclear moving forward, healthcare organizations still have an obligation to their patients for digital accessibility. In our webinar session, TPGi’s accessibility experts and Seyfarth Shaw’s legal professionals will help you understand ACA Section 1557 requirements, its future under the Trump administration, and offer strategies to help you create inclusive experiences.

Contact Lorre to have your resource listed.

Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Teladoc Health reports Q4 results: revenue down 1%, EPS -$0.28 vs. -$0.17, meeting revenue expectations but missing on earnings. BetterHelp segment revenue dropped 10% year-over-year. Shares plunged Wednesday and Thursday on the results and lowered revenue guidance. TDOC shares are down 38% over the past 12 months, valuing the company at $1.6 billion. From the earnings call:

• The company added 4 million members and increased visit volumes by 6% in 2024.
• It will launch technology that will enable external partners to integrate with its data to support longitudinal care.
• BetterHelp stabilized its number of paying users, but revenue per user declined due to lower international pricing.
• Health plan sales have slowed due to the upcoming end of Affordable Care Act subsidies, uncertainty about Medicaid expansion, and inflation.
• Weight management remains a growth driver, but employers are still defining their GLP-1 strategies and working to capture the rebates that typically go to pharmacy benefit managers.
• BetterHelp is a variable margin business, so revenue growth is key to maintaining economy of scale.

SimCare AI, which creates AI patients for clinician training, raises $2 million in seed funding. Use cases include residency training, practicing social work interventions, and testing job applicants.

Bias Capital cancels its $25 million Series A investment in EHR vendor Parker Health after its due diligence raises concerns of fraud. The investment was announced in July 2023.

A study finds that cancer care quality declined after HCA acquired Mission Health in Asheville, NC. Under HCA, the hospital has faced staffing shortages, inadequate resources, and poor management, leading to service cutbacks. All of its oncologists resigned, the oncology pharmacy closed, and a local oncology group stopped using the hospital for inpatient therapy due to understaffing, lab delays, and a lack of chemotherapy-trained pharmacists. The lead author states, “In the view of many observers, HCA aims to maximize profits while maintaining quality just high enough to avoid legal and regulatory issues and retain business.”

Sales

• New Mexico Health Care Authority chooses Findhelp for its rollout of a statewide social care closed loop referral system
• Inova Health selects Abridge for ambient documentation.
• Sacramento County Department of Health Services will launch Sacramento Health Connect, powered by Innovaccer’s GHAAP.

People

Wolters Kluwer Health CEO Stacey Caywood, MBA will succeed Wolters Kluwer CEO Nancy McKinstry when she retires in February 2026. The health division provides software and information solutions as part of its $6 billion parent.

Medlogix hires Alan Horton as chief growth officer.

Connexall names interim CEO Sandy Saggar to the permanent position.

Karen Thomas-Smith (Parata Systems) joins Arcadia as chief marketing officer.

Announcements and Implementations

CliniComp introduces Intrinsic AI, which adds clinician-centric workflow tools to its cloud-based New Era EHR solution suite.

Meditech announces the Expanse Outreach Portal, which enables hospitals to connect with nursing homes, urgent care centers, and medical practices that use the hospital’s lab service.

MassHealth launches a statewide solution to expedite psychiatric inpatient admissions using PointClickCare’s platform.

Inbox Health launches a support service that it says resolves 90% of patient billing inquiries with a 95% satisfaction rate.

China-based Ping An Good Doctor will provide 24×7 health consultations using an AI-driven digital avatars. Its Renowned Doctor AI Medical Assistant was trained on the company’s own medical databases, with additional resources and tuning provided by the doctor that the avatar represents. The company says that the tool improves family doctor efficiency by 30%.

Government and Politics

Stat confirms an HIStalk reader’s previous report that federal officials won’t be attending HIMSS25 due to a travel freeze.

The US military successfully tests treating deployed sailors through video virtual visits, although network latency remains a challenge.

The FDA reinstates an unspecified number of employees who oversee medical device safety and AI software just days after their termination under the White House’s DOGE program. Lawmakers and trade groups had warned that the layoffs could create a backlog of medical device reviews and disrupt the medical supply chain. Many of the affected employees were funded by manufacturer fees rather than taxpayer dollars.

Former VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD calls for a relaunch of the VA’s Oracle Health implementation with these principles:

• Use the updated software instance.
• Set clear goals and timelines at each site.
• Accelerate deployment, as only six of 164 sites are live.
• Limit change orders, given the 1,800 requests filed in the current instance, as noted in a GAO report.
• Update the project budget and hold leaders accountable to it.
• Thoroughly test pharmacy, referral, and behavioral health modules to ensure veteran safety.

In England, a 30-year-old NHS supply chain system that was originally provided by ISoft (now CSC) is found to have caused shipping delays in 2024 due to 35 high-priority computer alerts.

In Canada, Alberta’s health minister is challenged for firing Penny Rae, the CIO of Alberta Health Services amidst a provincial government healthcare restructuring.

Other

A Nebraska father struggles to get authorities to correct the birth record name of his daughter, to whom a hospital assigned a temporary name of Unakite Thirteen Hotel that was never updated. He learned that he was the father of an abandoned two-year-old girl, gained custody, and named her Caroline. Then he found that her birth record was wrong, she hadn’t been issued a Social Security number, and her birth certificate is unusable because it was stamped “for government use only.”

Sponsor Updates

• Frederick Health launches precision medicine integration between Meditech’s Expanse Genomics and GenomOncology’s Precision Oncology, which will provide clinicians with enhanced decision support. 
• Arcadia, Inovalon, InterSystems, Ellkay, Linus Health, MRO, and Navina will exhibit at RISE National 2025 March 11-14 in San Antonio.
• Black Book Research releases its 2025 rankings of top-rated vendors in population health and value-based care solutions, giving top marks to Elsevier (patient education) and Inovalon (population health reporting, analytics and benchmarking for payers and employers).
• WellSky drives momentum with new innovations and breakthrough growth in 2024.
• ServiceNow recognizes Optimum Healthcare IT as its partner of the year.
• Impact Advisors releases a new episode of the “Impactful AI” podcast, titled “Escaping Pilot Purgatory.”
• The Medicomp Systems “Tell Me Where It Hurts” podcast features Altera Digital Health VP of Policy and Public Affairs Leigh Burchell.

Blog Posts

• Karen Dierker Ranks Among the Top 50 Women Leaders in Healthcare Technology (Capital Rx)
• HIMSS25: Our thoughts before the global conference (Altera Digital Health)
• 5 Lessons Learned from the 2024 Healthcare Cyberattack, One Year Later (Availity)
• Enhancing clinical excellence at Midland Health (Wolters Kluwer Health)
• Transfer DRGs 101 (FinThrive)
• Workday Accounting Center: What Every Healthcare CFO Needs to Know (Healthcare IT Leaders)
• Boost patient collections, improve patient relations with an early out billing cycle (Inbox Health)
• Cracking the Code to Patient Safety Structural Measures: A Strategic Approach to Compliance (Inovalon)
• How healthcare practices can empower care partners to improve cognitive outcomes (Linus Health)

Contacts

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