Wednesday news roundup: March telehealth claims down to 4.6%, state telehealth waivers expiring, UnitedHealth’s Optum bids for EMIS, Talkspace reportedly rejected Amwell, Mindpath bids

June 22, 2022 | by

Telehealth usage continuing its downward trend. At 4.6%, telehealth medical claims in March were off over 6% (0.3 points) versus February’s 4.9%. Again, 65% of claims were for mental health conditions, and social workers were the leading providers of telehealth at 32% for primarily one hour of psychotherapy at 26%. FAIR Health monthly US tracker.

One possible contributing factor is states pulling back on the broad telehealth provider location and other waivers (such as platforms) that were enacted during the Covid emergency. These waivers primarily permitted out-of-state providers. The expiration of waivers thus return telehealth delivery to in-state licensed providers unless covered by other regulations, for instance Medicaid. Last year, 26 states waived in-state licensure requirements; this year, only 12 states have these waivers. California and New Jersey are due to expire soon.  NBC News with a hat tip to HISTalk.

Optum bids to buy UK health software provider EMIS. The bid of £1.24 billion ($1.5 billion) was announced last Friday. A UK affiliate of Optum, Bordeaux UK Holdings II Limited, is the actual entity for the acquisition, recommended by the EMIS board. The offer is in cash and represents a 49% premium to the current share price. EMIS is a leading provider of software and systems to the NHS, serving primary care, community care and pharmacy, acute care, and the Patient.info website. When completed, EMIS would be UnitedHealth’s largest acquisition in the UK and Europe. FierceHealthcare 

Troubled telementalhealth provider Talkspace reportedly rejected a bid from Amwell pretty much out of hand, leading to speculation that it’s up for sale but being picky-picky-picky.  According to the report in Behavioral Health Business, from Seeking Alpha, their talks did not even reach number discussions. This is after Talkspace rejected another bid in May from another telementalhealth provider Mindpath, backed by Centerbridge Partners and Leonard Green & Partners. Sources were split on whether $500 million was offered or not (Axios).

Talkspace is one of the poster children for Cracking SPACs. It hit the market in January 2021 at a valuation of $1.4 billion, opening above $8, hitting a peak of about $11 per share. Share price declined to as low as $1.06 before rising on this acquisition talk to $1.58. Current valuation is $58 million, but it is sitting on a reported $184 million in cash. Reportedly their CEO search is going nowhere. Much like Teladoc, one year after their SPAC, investor lawsuits were filed against the company for misleading investors. Look for Talkspace to be sold over the summer.

DOJ to block UnitedHealth-Change Healthcare buy: report

February 17, 2022 | by

Change is controversial, at least for UnitedHealth. Healthcare Dive reported today that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is preparing a lawsuit to block UnitedHealth from purchasing Change Healthcare. Their source is a report published on a subscription financial website, Dealreporter, that their sources say that both companies will be meeting with the DOJ for what is charmingly called a ‘last rites’ meeting. Apparently, all the companies’ plans for divestitures [TTA 26 Jan] are not enough to satisfy DOJ on the antitrust issues raised not only by the DOJ, but also strongly by the American Hospital Association and the National Community Pharmacists Association.

Announced in January, the merger approval had been tabled in August and October/November, with the closing delayed accordingly, so the DOJ action resulting from their mandatory review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Act (HSR) was anticipated. Even in August, the delay did not bode well for this $8 billion in cash/$5 billion in debt deal.

What’s at issue here is the consolidation of data and businesses both UH and Change are in–health IT and revenue cycle management–and reduced competition that drives up costs for health systems and providers. As this Editor observed in March, OptumInsight, Optum’s data analytics unit, and Change provide a similar range of services in health IT and revenue cycle management (RCM). As one of the largest independents in these areas, Change contracted with providers and had access to the data of 1 out of 3 patients. Optum’s parent, UnitedHealthcare, is also the largest US payer. These were the factors that made those represented by the American Hospital Association (AHA) very nervous indeed [TTA 25 Mar] regarding pricing of these services–and they expressed their misgivings cogently in a seven-page letter (PDF link) to DOJ on 17 March. In their view, Change integrated into OptumInsight would reduce competition and increase pricing in RCM, claims clearinghouse and payment accuracy services, and clinical decision support services.

In DC, the view of what is anti-competitive is cyclical. The 2020 acquisition of WellCare by Centene was approved with nary a whinny. CVS-Aetna took forever because of a showboating judge, but was finally approved in 2019. Yet only two years before, the Aetna-Humana and Anthem-Cigna mergers were doomed to fail. In this administration, large mergers do not fare well; both Aon-Willis Towers Watson and Lockheed-Aerojet Rocketdyne were canceled.

Expect to hear more by end of month. 

Hackermania running wild, 2015 edition

February 11, 2015 | by
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Do we need the Hulkster Running Wild against Hacking? It’s so heartwarming to see the mainstream press catch up to what your Editors have been whinging on for the past few years: that healthcare data is the Emperor With No Clothes. Here we have Reuters and the New York Times with a case of the vapors, seeking a fainting couch. Reuters dubs 2015 ‘The year of the healthcare hack’. The FBI is investigating the AnthemHealth breach, while their counterparts UnitedHealth, Cigna and Aetna are in full, breathless damage control mode. The Times at least delves into the possibility that it was at least partially instigated by China and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) unit that trolls for intellectual property.

Our Readers, savvy to your Editors’ warnings since at least 2010, were aware that the drumbeat accelerated this past summer. (more…)