The Next Voice You Hear? Two advances in voice analysis and restoring speech to those who’ve lost it. The first is from Cigna International based in Hong Kong which through speech and choice of words can determine your stress level. Your Editor took the Cigna StressWaves test, which requires 90 seconds of answering a question based on one of four topics. To her utter shock as she’s rushing to get out an article or two after a busy day at work and the loss of a good friend in the past week, she was told her stress level was low!... Continue Reading
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IBM Watson Health’s stumble and possible fall
...up for sale. Smaller, nimbler companies have taken over cloud computing and data analytics with AI and machine learning solutions that broke problems down into manageable chunks and business niches. What’s recoverable from Watson? Basic, crunchy AI. Watson does natural language processing very well, as well as or better than Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Watson Assistant is used by payers like Anthem to automate customer inquiries. Hardly a moonshot or even clinical decision support. For business, Watson applications automate basic tasks in ‘dishwashing’ areas such as accounting, payments, technology operations, marketing, and customer service. The bottom line is not good... Continue Reading
News roundup: dogs sniffing out COVID, CVS rolling out OTC COVID tests, Hydrogen Health launches, Alcidion UK acquires ExtraMed
...prescription and can be used by those with or without symptoms. CVS is placing them in-store initially in different and limited numbers of states, with the Abbott test set to be most widely available, plus online ordering. Healthcare Finance Hydrogen Health launches a joint venture between Anthem, K Health, and Blackstone Growth. Its purpose is kind of the usual–improve care and care access at a lower cost. K Health combines a symptom checker with telemedicine–a $19 flat visit charge to see a clinician, including pediatricians. The release is a model of forward-thinking opacity as to what “innovative, digital-first healthcare solutions”... Continue Reading
‘Insurtech’ Oscar Health adds +Oscar tech platform to market health plan and member engagement services
...and workflow tools. Why it’s important. It’s an interesting and fast redeployment of assets developed to run Oscar’s plans and services, repackaged to sell to smaller health plans. Large insurers took years to realize that they could package and sell their systems to other health plans and employers; independent companies do the same (for instance, network management and provider credentialing). Oscar is also partnering with Cigna on co-branded California health plans. Selling the technology can create real revenue (ask UHG’s Optum), even more so than health plans. It also might help their profitability problem [TTA 9 Feb]. Release, FierceHealthcare, Becker’s.... Continue Reading
News and deal roundup: Microsoft’s $20B deal for Nuance; Cigna Evernorth finalizes MDLive; GoodRx buys HealthiNation; Papa’s $60M Series C
...offerings built on Microsoft Azure. Nuance claims that in the US, 55 percent of physicians, 75 percent of radiologists, and 77 percent of hospitals use their products. It’s a big but expected bet for Microsoft in healthcare against Apple that is expected to double Microsoft’s total addressable market (TAM) in the healthcare provider space to nearly $500 billion. It also adds enterprise AI expertise and customer engagement solutions in Interactive Voice Response (IVR), virtual assistants, and digital and biometric solutions for companies outside of healthcare. Microsoft release, Becker’s Health IT Cigna closed its purchase of telehealth provider MDLive on 19... Continue Reading
Short takes 9 April: Doro phones to elderly isolated; funding to Vesta Healthcare, Zedsen; Anthem partners with Canvas EMR, Health Metrics (AU) new owner
...functions to create personalized insights about health, fitness, diet, and emotional wellbeing. The investors include: Joseph R. Grano, former Chairman and CEO of UBS Financial Services Inc; Nasser Kazeminy, Investor, Founder of NJK Holding and Chairman of the Ellis Island Honor Society (EIHS); Tony Rice, Former CEO of Cable and Wireless; Bonnie Mcalveen Hunter, Chairperson of the Red Cross; and Jim Harpel, Investor at Palm Beach Capital. Release, Mobihealthnews Health payer Anthem is constructing an interesting partnership with a physician-targeted EMR, Canvas. Canvas will integrate Anthem member information into their EMR workflows as part of Canvas Payer SDK (software development... Continue Reading
Deal and news roundup: Therapy Brands’ big KKR investment, AppliedVR’s non-painful $29M Series A; Akili tests cognitive-boosting games; Firefly Health lights up $40M; Mastercard-b.well partner, two big IPOs filed, more
...in what they term a ‘digital Kaiser’. The raise will be used to launch a targeted health plan offering. Firefly already works with Aetna, Anthem, Tufts Health Plan, and UnitedHealthcare, among others, but at this time is pretty much limited to Massachusetts and does not accept Medicare nor Medicaid. Jonathan Bush, former CEO of athenahealth, joined back in 2019 as executive chairman a year after his departure. FierceHealthcare And in other news… Two IPO filings plus a SPAC: Privia Health, a national physician platform furnishing management services to providers such as group formation (ACOs) and technologies for coordination and value-based... Continue Reading
US Department of Justice decides additional scrutiny needed of $13bn Optum acquisition of Change Healthcare
...called US Healthcare, they tend to snowball into delays, even if it can be managed to a successful conclusion. (Extreme examples: the doomed to fail Aetna-Humana and Anthem-Cigna mergers) While RCM and data analytics are not as high profile as health plans and retail health, industry groups have a lot of clout in the DC Swamp when the cause is higher cost and DOJ, in this administration, is likely to be more activist. Another reason: if UHG or Change have to divest themselves of too much (UHG set a boundary of $650 million), they may Call The Whole Thing Off.... Continue Reading
Deals and news roundup: Ginger’s $100M, myNEXUS to Anthem, Everlywell snaps up PWN, Amwell’s banner year for revenue–and loss, VA reviews Cerner rollout, voice visits for MA, GE’s vScan goes wireless, uBiome founders indicted
...are closing in on the early entrants such as AbleTo. Direct-to-consumer models like Talkspace; UK/Ireland’s SilverCloud Health; and Lyra, Spring Health, and Happify, which just closed a $73 million Series D, all step out with slightly different ‘differentiators’ but target the same companies, health plans, and health systems. FierceHealthcare, Ginger release. Home health is also another former ugly duckling transformed into a swan. Anthem is acquiring home health/nursing management company myNEXUS, which manages home-based nursing services for 1.7 million Medicare Advantage members across 20 states. Their digital authorization and visit management couples with a nationwide network of providers and nursing... Continue Reading
Deal and news roundup: Cigna acquires MDLive, Oscar Health $1bn IPO preview, Teladoc’s smash revenue–and losses, Medisafe’s $30M Series C
The big news this week in Telehealth World is Cigna’s agreement to acquire MDLive. MDLive will be part of Evernorth, Cigna’s health services portfolio. From the release and news reports, Cigna has been a long-time partner of and investor (through Cigna Ventures) in MDLive, which has grown to 60 million members. No purchase price nor management changes have been disclosed. Headquartered in Florida, since 2009 MDLive raised close to $200 million in investment in five rounds, the last $50 million in private equity in September, and was rumored to be prepping an IPO. Evernorth was rebranded within Cigna last September... Continue Reading
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