Monday Morning Update 1/5/26

Top News

The Drug Enforcement Administration extends telehealth flexibility in the prescribing of controlled substances through December 31, 2026.

This fourth extension came during the last hours of December 31 and took effect the next day.

The flexibilities allow practitioners to remotely prescribe scheduled drugs without first conducting an in-person visit. They may also manage maintenance and withdrawal treatments for opioid use disorder.

Reader Comments

From Boyd Beaver: “Re: HTI-5. Washington keeps writing rules as if health IT were competitive, while the market keeps behaving like it isn’t.” In health tech, some companies are innovative and some are imitative, but the rules assume equal market power and equal buyer choice. Companies don’t grow unless they are selling something customers actually want over competitive alternatives. It’s not clear that EHRs are in such demand in the post-Meaningful Use era that vendors are staying out of the market primarily because certification costs are too high. It’s also worth noting that EHR certification was created under a Republican administration and announced days into the Obama presidency as the string attached to federal stimulus money, a move that pushed out smaller vendors and permanently shaped the product roadmaps of the survivors. Today’s EHR market was deliberately created by federal certification.

From AI Drop: “Re: AI. Health systems aren’t adopting AI because it is transformational. They are using it because it’s cheaper than people. Nobody should be surprised that workflow messes persist and disruption is limited to financials.”

From UHG Whiz: “Re: the January 1 mess of US health insurance. Premiums have skyrocketed, deductibles are up to the point of making all policies catastrophic coverage only, and the resetting of those deductibles causes people to defer care that they can’t afford. Just try to get through to insurer to ask about new formulary changes or another round of prior authorizations. This isn’t cost control so much as cost shifting, with patients left to absorb the risk and the consequences.”

HIStalk Announcements and Requests

HIStalk readers want HIMSS to pick a lane, but can’t decide on which one, which is probably the same challenge that faces Hal Wolf. The #1 choice could be a moneymaker but only at modest scale, #2 doesn’t generate much revenue, and #3 is history because they’ve sold the annual conference exhibit. Respondents are looking for HIMSS to provide industry relevance while HIMSS itself is trying to stop its post-2020 free fall. Respondents skew heavily US, so the global conference answer might be underrepresented. Maybe the takeaway that both sides is that expertise beats booths, plus its pre-COVID ambitions involved selling consulting services around its now-multiple adoption models. Another good poll question would be – would you pay out of your own pocket for HIMSS membership?

New poll to your right or here: What is your reaction to ASTP/ONC’s proposed cutback of EHR certification requirements? Is it a free pass for vendors, a catalyst for innovation, or are those effectively the same thing?

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Sponsored Events and Resources

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Acquisitions, Funding, Business, and Stock

Population health technology vendor Clint shuts down and files Chapter 7 bankruptcy, citing insufficient cash to make payroll and pay creditors.

People

Rich Rogers, MBA, SVP/CIO at Prisma Health, retires.

Announcements and Implementations

The FDA grants 510(k) clearance for BrainSpace’s Intellidrop autonomous brain fluid pressure management system for ICUs. Brain Fluid Interface (BFI) products monitor cerebrospinal fluid, interstitial fluid, and cerebral blood and create training data for Physical AI models.

Other

I enjoyed this LinkedIn photo taken by Altera Digital Health during San Gorgonia Memorial Hospital’s (CA) upgrade to Sunrise 25.1. Go-live teams of both vendor and hospital people, united by their immediately recognizable team support shirts, usually get squeezed into temporarily and lightly repurposed conference rooms (hint: tape cables down, make sure computer-controlled HVAC doesn’t automatically take off for the night, wheel in a whiteboard, and source an unreasonable amount of coffee). Go-live warriors will be taken back olfactorily to long nights in the war room — overheated laptops and printers, panic sweat, and the stench of around-the-clock leftover junk food like pizza and everything bagels. Regards to those who know the smell and have thus earned the shirt.

Contacts

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