Wellvana Health Announces $84 Million Capital Raise to Drive Innovation in Value-Based Care Enablement
$140 million in funding raised since November 2020 Wellvana Health announced today that it has closed an $84 million capital raise to drive innovation in value-based care enablement for independent primary care physicians, specialists, and health systems. The investment is co-led by Nashville-based Heritage Group and Valtruis, a Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS) company, and joined by Memorial Hermann Health System, the largest not-for-profit health system in southeast Texas. This round brings Wellvana’s total funding since November 2020 to approximately $140 million. Nashville-based Martin Ventures led fo...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - April 6, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT 2023 ACO REACH Adam Boehler Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services CMS Devin Carty Feby Abraham Ph.D. First Trust Capital Partners Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Investment Heritag Source Type: blogs

What Tends to Go Wrong With Medication Adherence?
This article looks at special conditions that weren’t covered in previous articles. Interventions Must Be Tailored Reminders lie at the core of many IT solutions to medication adherence. But a mechanistic delivery of generic messages with no particular appeal to a patient’s needs and values will usually be a waste. As Bryan Hill, VP of digital health and innovation at Cognizant, says, “Nudge, but don’t nag.” I am personally annoyed by the messages my pharmacy and insurance company send me to remind me to order my medication. These messages arrive when a couple months of my current prescription...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - April 5, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Ambulatory Analytics/Big Data Clinical Communication and Patient Experience Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System LTPAC AristaMD Babylon Health Bethany Doran Bryan Hill Carium Cognizant Colin Banas DrFirst Source Type: blogs

Bonus Features – April 2, 2023 – 63% of nurses say AI will cause a generational divide among nursing staff, 67% of consumers prefer electronic medical bills but 78% of providers still use paper, and more
This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job. In this week’s edition, one story is, let’s just say, a little foolish. It is the beginning of April, after all. News and Research The American Telemedicine Association’s ATA Action submitted two letters to the...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - April 2, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: Healthcare IT AdvancedMD American Telemedicine Association ATA Atropos Health AVIA Censinet Censinet One CenTrak ChristianaCare DEA Dot2Dot DrFirst eClinicalWorks eCW Health Recovery Solutions Healthcare IT Today Bonus Feat Source Type: blogs

Telehealth Startup OpenLoop Raises $15 Million to Streamline Virtual Care Delivery
Company launches the first-of-its-kind comprehensive nationwide payer coverage network, offering clients everything they need from first visit to final payment OpenLoop, a leader in white-label telehealth support services powering virtual and hybrid care across the country, today announced it has raised a $15M Series A funding. The round was led by Nava Ventures, with participation from new investors UnityPoint Health Ventures and PrimeTime Ventures, and existing investors SpringTide Ventures and ManchesterStory. The company also announced a new nationwide insurance payer network that allows clients to offer reimbursable s...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 27, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Telemedicine and Remote Monitoring API CAGR Christian Williams Dr. Jon Lensing Freddie Martignetti Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Investment HIPAA Hybrid Care ManchesterStory Medi Source Type: blogs

Bonus Features – March 26, 2023 – Epic sees “ tremendous potential ” for GPT, more than 90% of patients want self-scheduling, and more
This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job. News In a Microsoft press release announcing the availability of GPT-4 in Azure OpenAI Service, Epic’s Seth Hain, Senior Vice President of Research and Development, said the EHR vendor sees “tremendous potential̶...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 26, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: AI/Machine Learning Healthcare IT Advata Amwell athenahealth Atropos Health Barbara Allen Bill Scott Boston University Caregility Carenet Health Carium Carnegie Mellon University Castle Connolly Top Doctors ChatGPT CHG Health Source Type: blogs

Taking Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) From Data to Analysis and Action
The following is a guest article by Diana Zuskov, MPH, Associate Vice President of Healthcare Strategy at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions.  SDoH Success Stories to Inspire Adoption and Action in Your Organization Healthcare organizations are spending significant resources – time, money, and human capital – to address social determinants of health (SDoH) and health equity. Effective execution requires going upstream of the programming itself to understand the social determinants of a population. According to Data Bridge Market Research, the U.S. SDoH market is growing with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9% betw...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 24, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Guest Author Tags: Analytics/Big Data C-Suite Leadership Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System Interoperability Clinical Data Data Action Data Analysis Diana Zuskov EHR Electronic Health Records Health Gorilla Health Gorilla’s Source Type: blogs

Federal Spending Up 40 Percent Since 2019
Chris EdwardsFederal spending jumped from $4.45 trillion in 2019 to $6.21 trillion in 2023, according to theCongressional Budget Office. That is a  40 percent increase in four years. The pandemic supercharged the federal budget, and spending and deficits are expected to continue rising unless policymakers pursue major reforms.What is all the new spending since 2019? The answer is surprising, as shown in the two tables below. The main drivers of the recent increases have not been the largest three programs —Social Security, Medicare, and defense—but rather rapid growth in numerous other programs.Table 1  shows CBO spe...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs

Bursting the Bubble of Over-Inflated U.S. Insulin Prices Still Leaves Behind a Very Broken U.S. Prescription Drug " Market "
This report pulls back the curtain on the drivers of spiking prices. It ' s a perfect example of why we ought to continue pushing for bipartisan legislation and oversight to address this problem. " " This investigation makes clear that consumers are the only ones losing out in America ' s broken drug pricing system, since every part of the pharmaceutical supply chain benefits from higher list prices. Insulin manufacturers lit the fuse on skyrocketing prices by matching each other ’s price increases step for step rather than competing to lower them, while PBM ' s, acting as middlemen for insurers, fanned the flames t...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 22, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 insulin prices PBM USC Source Type: blogs

10 Budget Reforms Millennials Can Get Behind
Romina BocciaAs federal debt continues to rise, younger generations will bear the brunt of today ’s irresponsible deficit spending. Not all millennials are passive bystanders as Congress seals their fate. The Millennial Debt Foundation (MDF) recently released10 recommendations to address the U.S. debt challenge over the next 30 years.Founded in 2019 with the support ofthe late Senator Tom Coburn, MD, the Foundation convened millennial business leaders and members of Congress to devise a plan to reduce the growth in the federal debt. I am pleased to serve the organization as a senior advisor.The latest Congressional Budge...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 21, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Romina Boccia Source Type: blogs

Why does health care cost so much in the U.S. part the infinity
I ' m on a lot of email lists thanks to my profession. A message I got today is below. I won ' t make you read it before I explain that one reason medical services cost so much in this godforsaken country is that providers have to hire people to with specialized training and pay them salaries to deal with this crap. Keep in mind that they see people with multiple different kinds of insurance and they need to keep track of what insurance the person has, what it will pay for, how much, and how, based on manuals containing hundreds of pages of similar dreck. And if they don ' t get it just right, they won ' t be paid. In civi...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 20, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs

Deficits Caused by Broad ‐​Based Spending Increases
Chris EdwardsToday ’s soaring federal deficits are a looming disaster and were sadly avoidable. If policymakers had held spending to the same level relative to gross domestic product (GDP) as under President Bill Clinton, this year’s budget would be balanced. Instead, presidents and congresses over the past two d ecades have failed to reform elderly entitlement programs, while also jacking up spending on many other activities.Thefederal budget was balanced the last four years of the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001, but it has not been balanced since. The imbalance has grown over time, and today ’s policymak...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 17, 2023 Category: American Health Authors: Chris Edwards Source Type: blogs

Podcast Episode Recommendation: Our Curious Amalgam Podcast Episode 212
 My followers may be forgiven for their lack of awareness, but on October 23, 2022, the man who lead the PBM known as Express Scripts (owned by commercial healthcare insurance company Cigna since 2018) named George Paz died at relatively young age of 67. Mr. Paz began at Express Scripts in 1998 as CFO. By 2003, he was president and by 2005, CEO. Paz retired as CEO in 2016, although he remained chairman until Express Scripts was acquired by Cigna in December 2018. The local newspaper, theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch published his obituaryHERE). While he was an admired business leader in St. Louis, one of the things his comp...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 16, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 episode Express Scripts George Paz PBM podcast USC Source Type: blogs

The Insulin-PBM Rebate Kickback Scheme Appears to Coming to an End
Last year, on March 3, 2022, in what I believe was a fantastic accomplishment relatively early in Aaron Kowalski ' s tenure as CEO, the JDRF and Civica, Inc. (via the company ' s CivicaScript operating unit) jointly announced Civica ' s intention to commercialize biosimilars of the three bestselling insulin analogues at an affordable price of $30/vial or $55/box of five insulin pens. The Civica press release can be seen athttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220303005321/en/Civica-to-Manufacture-and-Distribute-Affordable-Insulin/ and a concurrent press release from JDRF can be seen athttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 14, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Eli Lilly and Company 2023 Civica CivicaRx CivicaScript drug prices FTC insulin insulin prices JDRF Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk Pharma Source Type: blogs

The Insulin-PBM Rebate Kickback Scheme Appears to Be Coming to an End
Last year, on March 3, 2022, in what I believe was a fantastic accomplishment relatively early in Aaron Kowalski ' s tenure as CEO, the JDRF and Civica, Inc. (via the company ' s CivicaScript operating unit) jointly announced Civica ' s intention to commercialize biosimilars of the three bestselling insulin analogues at an affordable price of $30/vial or $55/box of five insulin pens. The Civica press release can be seen athttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220303005321/en/Civica-to-Manufacture-and-Distribute-Affordable-Insulin/ and a concurrent press release from JDRF can be seen athttps://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 14, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: Eli Lilly and Company 2023 Civica CivicaRx CivicaScript drug prices FTC insulin insulin prices JDRF Novo Nordisk Novo Nordisk Pharma Source Type: blogs

Bonus Features – March 12, 2023 – 87% of docs used telemedicine in 2021, 65% of healthcare orgs collect more trivial data once they adopt the cloud, and more
This article will be a weekly roundup of interesting stories, product announcements, new hires, partnerships, research studies, awards, sales, and more. Because there’s so much happening out there in healthcare IT we aren’t able to cover in our full articles, we still want to make sure you’re informed of all the latest news, announcements, and stories happening to help you better do your job. News Three Democratic Senators have introduced legislation to expand protections for Americans’ personal health data privacy. Sponsored by Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii),...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 12, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Brian Eastwood Tags: C-Suite Leadership Healthcare IT Accenture ACCESS Family Care Amy Klobuchar Anne Walker ATA Atropos Health Avi Mukherjee Blancco Technology Group Bright.md Cardinal Health CLEAR Converged Outreach COTA CRIP Crossroads Treat Source Type: blogs