Morning Headlines 1/7/21

Optum Acquires Change Healthcare for $13 Billion

UnitedHealth Group-owned Optum will acquire Change Healthcare and combine it with its OptumInsight software and analytics business.

TigerConnect Acquires Critical Alert, Ends 2020 with Second Major Acquisition

Care team collaboration software vendor TigerConnect acquires Critical Alert, best known for its nurse call, alarm, and event management medical devices and software.

Intraprise Health Acquires HIPAA One

Cybersecurity and risk management software vendor Intraprise Health acquires HIPAA One, a Utah-based company specializing in security, privacy, and compliance software and services.

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Morning Headlines 1/6/21

Cedar Gate Technologies Acquires Enli Health Intelligence

Value-based care performance management company Cedar Gate Technologies acquires population health IT vendor Enli Health Intelligence.

New Resources to Help Health IT Developers Understand ONC Cures Act Final Rule Requirements

ONC publishes Cures Act developer resources, including a summary of compliance dates and an API resource guide.

BerryDunn Expands Healthcare Industry Offerings with VantagePoint Merger

Healthcare compliance, consulting, and credentialing firm VantagePoint Healthcare Advisors merges with assurance, tax, and consulting firm BerryDunn.

Hinge Health has raised $310M Series D at a $3B valuation

Hinge Health, a telemedicine company specializing in chronic back and joint pain, raises $310 million in a Series D funding round.

Morning Headlines 1/5/21

Haven, the Amazon-Berkshire-JPMorgan venture to disrupt health care, is disbanding after 3 years

Boston-based Haven, which launched in 2018 with the goal of improving healthcare costs and outcomes for employers, notifies its 57 employees that it will shut down by the end of February.

Color announces $167 million in Series D financing to help build public health infrastructure across the U.S.

Population health technology company Color raises $167 million in a Series D funding round led by General Catalyst, bringing its total financing to $278 million.

Allscripts Closes Previously Announced Sale of CarePort Health Business

Allscripts wraps up its sale of care coordination business CarePort Health to WellSky for $1.35 billion.

Morning Headlines 1/4/21

Intrado Acquires Asparia

Multi-vertical technology services business Intrado acquires patient intake and engagement software vendor Asparia.

Maricopa County Vaccine Operations ‘Dramatically Slowed’ By Arizona System Glitches

Maricopa County, AZ blames vaccine rollout delays on the state’s vaccine management system, which it says didn’t email people to schedule their vaccination appointments, sent them to sites outside the county, has no text messaging option, locked people out who tried to use their Cox email address, and failed to show certain locations.

Firstsource Solutions Acquires PatientMatters

India-based business process management company Firstsource Solutions acquires Florida-based RCM vendor PatientMatters for $13 million, and will combine it with its MedAssist brand.

Morning Headlines 12/31/20

Telehealth: The Right Care, at the Right Time, via the Right Medium

UCLA Health describes in a NEJM Catalyst article how providers should developing triage processes that recognize telehealth’s benefits and limitations.

Stanford Medicine mistakenly vaccinated non-clinical affiliates over weekend

Stanford Medicine, fresh off protests by medical residents that its COVID-19 vaccination priority algorithm excluded them, deals with its second vaccine controversy in a week when rumors of “excess” doses caused non-clinical employees to line up at vaccination stations, where staff decided to give shots to anyone who was wearing a Stanford badge in ignoring the policy that only frontline workers in high-acuity settings should be injected.

PointClickCare Technologies Announces Closing of Collective Medical Acquisition

The long-term and post-acute care technology vendor completes its acquisition of Collective Medical, which offers a real-time care notification, activation, and collaboration platform.

Morning Headlines 12/30/20

Health-Costs Transparency Rule for Hospitals Upheld on Appeal

A federal court rejects AHA’s appeal, forcing hospitals to post their payer-specific negotiated charges on their websites starting Friday.

Judge signs off on Concord Hospital’s acquisition of LRGHealthcare

The bankrupt two-hospital, 162-bed system says it was paying $342,000 per month – 9% of its total revenue – to run Cerner.

Y. Michele Kang joins Washington Spirit ownership group

The founder and CEO of health and human services software vendor Cognosante buys a stake in the professional women’s soccer team.

Morning Headlines 12/29/20

Health startup seeks to bring COVID-19 vaccine tracking to Apple Wallet

Los Angeles County chooses Healthvana to allow people to present proof of COVID-19 vaccination as stored in Apple Wallet and to receive reminders when their second shot is due.

Home DNA test unicorn 23andMe raises nearly $85M

The company was laying off employees a year ago in citing declining consumer demand.

‘Toxic Individualism’: Pandemic Politics Driving Health Care Workers From Small Towns

Healthcare workers are moving away from their rural communities after being harassed by their neighbors for providing public health advice, challenging rural hospitals that were already struggling to fill clinical positions during the pandemic.

Morning Headlines 12/28/20

EverCommerce Acquires Updox, Industry Leader in Virtual Care and Communications Solutions

Service sector business software vendor EverCommerce acquires Updox, which offers healthcare solutions for faxing, electronic forms, video chat, and secure messaging.

Sumner Regional Medical Center experiencing outage issues as result of Nashville explosion

The Gallatin, TN hospital goes back to paper records when network outages caused by the Nashville RV explosion disrupt its EHR access.

Frieden honored for his lifelong work helping people with disabilities

Lex Frieden, MA, professor of health informatics at UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics, was named the 2020 Katie Beckett Award recipient for his lifelong work advancing the rights of people with disabilities.

Morning Headlines 12/24/20

Two Owners of New York Pharmacies Charged in a $30 Million COVID-19 Health Care Fraud and Money Laundering Case

The two owners of several New York pharmacies are indicted on federal charges for healthcare fraud and money laundering, accused of using Medicare’s emergency override COVID-19 codes and edits to submit $30 million in claims for cancer drugs that were never ordered or administered.

Leaky Server Exposes 12 Million Medical Records to Meow Attacker

A hospital EHR vendor in Vietnam exposes 12 million unprotected records that contained the medical and financial details of 80,000 patients of 18 medical facilities, and immediately afterward the misconfigured database was deleted in a so-called “meow” attack in which a hacker-dispatched bot erases an exposed database as a security lesson to its owner.

Trump commutes 20-year sentence in massive health care fraud run out of Florida

President Trump commutes the 20-year prison sentence of Miami Beach businessman Philip Esformes, who was convicted in April 2019 for his involvement in a $1 billion healthcare fraud case.

Morning Headlines 12/23/20

HMS to be Acquired by Veritas Capital-Backed Gainwell for $37.00 Per Share

Medicaid technology vendor Gainwell Technologies will acquire publicly traded HMS, which offers cost and outcomes systems, for $3.4 billion in cash.

Azara Healthcare and SPH Analytics’ Population Health Division Announce Merger

Community Health and physician practice population health technology vendor Azara Healthcare merges with the population health division of SPH Analytics.

Astria Health bankruptcy plan gets closer to approval as objections resolved

Washington-based Astria Health resolves Cerner’s objections to its bankruptcy reorganization plan, in which Cerner said it was owed $10.7 million that the health system it wasn’t said it wasn’t paying because its problems with Cerner billing caused at least $150 million in damages.

Morning Headlines 12/22/20

Mass General Brigham apologizes to employees for rocky vaccine rollout

A crush of sign-ups takes down employee COVID-19 vaccine appointment systems at Mass General Brigham and Tufts Medical Center.

Rio Grande Hospital Workers Turned Down the Vaccine. A Senator and a Sheriff’s Deputy Lined Up Instead.

A Texas hospital that was among the hardest hit with COVID-19 says that so many of its high-priority employees declined to receive the vaccine that it instead vaccinated a state senator, a sheriff’s deputy, and a community pharmacist and his daughter as it used all of its allocated 5,850 doses.

Joni Ernst Sparks Backlash for Getting COVID Vaccine After Spreading Conspiracy

US Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), who previously accused doctors of falsifying COVID-19 deaths for money and claimed that only 6% of reported COVID-19 deaths are actually caused by the infection, draws ire for tweeting out a photo that shows her receiving one of the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine.

Morning Headlines 12/21/20

Intelerad Medical Systems acquires Digisonics, Inc.

Imaging workflow vendor Intelerad acquires Digisonics, which sells cardiovascular and OB/GYN information systems.

DataLink Acquires Orizon360°: Expands Value-based Clinical Data Integration, Advanced Analytics and Financial Informatics Capabilities

EHR, analytics, and patient engagement software vendor DataLink acquires Orizon360°, which offers risk-bearing contract management technology.

Mental wellness platform Lyra Health is raising up to $175M at a $2.25B valuation

Employer-focused mental health app developer Lyra Health is raising $175 million in a Series E round, more than doubling its valuation to $2.25 billion.

Morning Headlines 12/18/20

Diameter Health Closes $18M Series B to Accelerate Vision to Improve Health Data Interoperability

Healthcare interoperability technology vendor Diameter Health raises $18 million in a Series B funding round, increasing its total to $30 million.

Verily Announces $700 Million Investment Round to Accelerate Key Businesses, Including Baseline and Verily Health Platforms

Verily will use a new $700 million investment to expand its work in clinical research, population health, care delivery, and chronic disease management.

H1 Closes $58 Million Series B Funding

H1, whose platform allows drug companies and health systems to target influential physicians, raises $58 million in a Series B funding round, increasing its total to $71 million.

Kyruus and HealthSparq Come Together to Transform Care Navigation Through Novel Payer-Provider Collaboration

Kyruus acquires the HealthSparq business of Cambia Health Solutions, which offers insurers provider search, cost estimates, reviews, appointment scheduling, and member rewards.

Sphere Acquires Patient Engagement and Revenue Cycle Management Platform, Health iPASS

Payments solution vendor Sphere acquires Health IPass, which offers patient engagement and RCM technology.

Morning Headlines 12/17/20

Medical-data company Flywheel nearing goal on $15M Series B

Minneapolis-based medical research informatics startup Flywheel raises $14 million of a planned $15 million Series B funding round.

Cerner Announces Agreement to Acquire Health Division of Kantar

Cerner will acquire data, analytics, and real-world evidence and research consulting subsidiary Kantar Health for $375 million in an effort to help its customers more effectively engage in clinical research.

Khosla-Backed Health AI Startup Raises $27.5 Million To Supercharge Primary Care

Chatbot telemedicine startup Curai raises $27.5 million in a Series B funding round led by Morningside Group.

Workit Health, a digital rehab startup, raises $12 million

Workit Health raises $12 million in a Series B round of funding that will enable the addiction treatment telemedicine startup to expand beyond the five states it currently serves.

Morning Headlines 12/16/20

67,000 hospital patients notified about data breach

Sonoma Valley Hospital (CA) notifies 67,000 patients of an October 11 ransomware attack that may have compromised patient information.

ConsejoSano Raises $17 Million in Series B Funding To Support Technology-Based Solutions That Help Reduce Health Disparities Among Multicultural Populations

Multicultural patient engagement software vendor ConsejoSano secures $17 million in a Series B financing round led by Magnetic Ventures.

TransUnion and Socially Determined Partner to Improve Health Outcomes By Using SDOH Data & Analytics

TransUnion Healthcare announces an undisclosed investment in and commercial partnership with social determinants of health risk analytics company Socially Determined.

Morning Headlines 12/15/20

Pair Team Secures $2.7M to Build Primary Care Operations Infrastructure

Automated patient engagement software startup Pair Team raises $2.7 million in seed funding from Kleiner Perkins, Craft Ventures, and YCombinator.

Cityblock Health Raises $160M Series C to Address Systemic Healthcare Inequity

Community care provider and software developer Cityblock Health wraps up a $160 million financing round that brings its valuation to over $1 billion.

Blueprint Maps Out Data-Driven Mental Health Platform With $3.4M Seed

Blueprint will use $3.4 million in seed funding to further develop its assessment, analytics, and reimbursement software for mental healthcare providers.

Morning Headlines 12/14/20

Reducing Provider and Patient Burden, and Promoting Patients’ Electronic Access to Health Information

CMS announces a rule that requires Medicaid managed care and insurers that sell products on the Exchanges to facilitate the exchange of patient data between payers.

eHealth Technologies Announces Expansion in Virginia

Medical record retrieval and image-sharing company EHealth Technologies, based in Rochester, NY, announces plans to open a location in Scott County, Virginia, and hire 160 employees over the next five years.

Tempus Announces $200 Million Series G-2 Financing

Precision medicine and analytics company Tempus will use a $200 million investment to expand its work beyond cancer to infectious diseases, depression, and cardiology.