News roundup: UHG CEO’s Bad Day at Capitol Hill; Kaiser’s 13.4M data breach; Walgreens’ stock beatup; Cigna writes off VillageMD; Oracle Cerner shrinks 50%; Owlet BabySat gets Wheel; fundings for Midi, Trovo, Alaffia, Klineo

May 2, 2024 | by

It was a Bad Day at Boot (Capitol) Hill for UnitedHealth Group’s CEO Andrew Witty. On May Day, he was the Man In The Arena facing two Congressional grillings–the first from the Senate Finance Committee in the morning, and the second in the afternoon from the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. The precipitating event was the Optum/Change Healthcare data breach and system hacking by ALPHV/BlackCat, a disruption which is as of today not fully resolved.  Millions of patients may have had data stolen and exposed–a number that has yet to be determined, but an outcome for which UHG, while paying the ransomwaristes, has prepared. Already, the VA has notified 15 million veterans and families of that possibility.

This Editor will be linking below to multiple articles and Mr. Witty’s prepared testimony. Interested Readers can also refer to YouTube for extensive links to video testimony. Highlights:

  • Both houses criticized the slow response and amount of financial assistance given to providers after the shutdown of Change’s systems prevented (and still is preventing) timely claims processing and payment. While ‘near normal’ volumes of medical claims and 86% restoration of payment processing sounds good, that leaves a lot of wiggle room on over two months of totally disrupted processing and payment. The billion or so cited sounds impressive but much of this is in loans. Most practices and groups simply do not have the financial cushion or billing skillset to bridge this disruption, to pay back loans, or to bookkeep this.
  • Also criticized at this late date was UHG being unable to determine how many individuals had PHI exposed in the breach.
  • As to cause, the description of UHG finding that surprise, surprise, Change’s systems were way out of date, stored on physical servers versus the cloud, and used Citrix remote access without multi-factor authentication (MFA) was utterly savaged. According to Mr. Witty, ALPHV after days of knocking around got in on the one server that did not have MFA authentication.

The blunt fact is that UHG had close to two years (January 2021-Oct 2022) before the buy closed. Due diligence consisting of a full audit had to have been done on Change’s IT systems. They processed what UHG wanted to buy. In this Editor’s estimation, Job #1! for UHG should have been ensuring that Change’s systems were hardened, then upgrading to what Mr. Witty called UnitedHealth’s standards. This Editor will go further. A minimum requirement for the sale should have been security hardening. There was time before the closing.

Senator Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, had the best riposte. He brought a copy of “Hacking for Dummies” to the hearing, highlighting MFA. I doubt he was much moved by UHG now bringing in cybersecurity company Mandiant to both investigate and harden their systems, nor by UHG having to pay ransom, without knowing whose data was compromised.

  • Beyond the breach, UHG was called ‘monopolistic’ by both Republican and Democrat Members. There were calls to break up UHG as not ‘too big to fail’. UHG has grown by acquisition and consolidation of services. As this Editor has speculated, this is likely coming to an end with the new, much more stringent Merger Guidelines. This sentiment paints a large, unmissable target on UHG’s back for aiming FTC’s and DOJ’s missiles. (DOJ also has a huge score to settle with UHG dating back to the failure to block the Change sale.)

By the end of the day, Mr. Witty looked quite the worse for wear–tie and collar askew, slightly sweaty, versus the perfect poses of the various Members. Becker’s, FierceHealthcare, Axios, HealthcareDive    Mr. Witty’s Senate testimony statement, House testimony statement

Speaking of data breaches, Kaiser Permanente reported a big one to Health and Human Services (HHS). This relates to ad tracker information shared with third-party advertisers such as Google, Microsoft, and X. Kaiser used it in secured areas of their website and mobile apps. Information disclosed could be name and IP. Kaiser reported it on 12 April but only disclosed on 25 April that 13.4 million records may have been affected. The ad trackers have since been removed. TechCrunch, FierceHealthcare 

Walgreens stock not recovering. April was WBA’s worst month in five years and May is no better, with the stock muddling around $17.50. The month slid around 18%. Their 52-week high was $33. As of now, CEO Tim Wentworth’s actions such as closing locations and writing down VillageMD haven’t convinced Mr. Market of WBA’s worth, but in fairness it’s early in his tenure. In the Insult to Injury Department, it was revealed that the IRS is seeking to claw back $2.7 billion in unpaid 2014-2017 taxes. Crain’s Chicago Business

Cigna is also writing down its interest in VillageMD. Almost forgotten is that in late 2022, Cigna invested $2.5 billion into VillageMD. They have now written down $1.8 billion of that ‘low teens’ ownership. The planned tie was connecting Village Medical into Evernorth, Cigna’s medical services area. It was also supposed to provide Cigna with an annual return on investment, but one assumes it did not. The writeoff threw Cigna’s Q1 into the red with a net loss of almost $300 million versus a prior year profit of $1.3 billion, despite a strong quarter that grew revenue 23% versus prior year to $57.3 billion. Healthcare Dive

Oracle Health has been successful–in shrinking Cerner by close to half. Records of employment at Cerner’s Kansas City-based operation have declined from 11,900 people in 2022 (Kansas City Area Development Council) to a current 6,400 (internal documents). Cerner itself reported 12,778 local full-time-equivalent employees in 2022. Oracle had multiple layoffs of Cerner affecting Kansas City workers and has consolidated multiple office buildings and campuses. Becker’s

In more cheerful news:

Baby monitor Owlet announced a strategic partnership with Wheel for Owlet’s BabySat. BabySat is Owlet’s FDA-cleared prescription vital signs monitor for infants 1-18 months. Wheel clinicians can now prescribe BabySat which enables parents to order BabySat from Owlet and other suppliers. With Wheel, BabySat also integrates with durable medical equipment (DME) suppliers who accept and can bill for the product through many insurance providers for partial or full reimbursement. Wheel is a virtual care platform and physician/nurse-practitioner online network available direct to consumer and to enterprises. Owlet release

And rounding up funding:

MidiHealth closed a $60M Series B funding. This was led by Emerson Collective with participation from Memorial Hermann, SemperVirens, Felicis, Icon Ventures, Black Angel Group, Gingerbread Capital, Able Partners, G9, and Operator Collective for a total of $99 million in funding. Midi provides virtual support for women going through peri- and full menopause. The fresh funding will help them expand national insurance coverage, hire and upskill an additional 150 clinicians by end of year, diversify service lines, and scale to care for 1 million+ women per year by 2029. Release

Trovo Health launched with $15 million in seed funding, led by Oak HC/FT. The NYC-based AI-powered provider task assistance platform will use the funding to build its technology platform, clinical operations, and leadership team. Mobihealthnews 

In the same roundup, NYC-based Alaffia Health scored a $10 million Series A round. This was led by FirstMark Capital with participation from Aperture Venture Capital. Alaffia creates generative AI solutions for payment integrity in health insurance claims operations, with the aim of eliminating insurance fraud, waste, and abuse for health plans, third-party administrators, self-insured employers, stop-loss carriers, and government agencies. Their total raise to date is $17.6 million. Paris-based Klineo also raised €2 million for its oncology clinical trials search platforms, assisted by AI, for the use of doctors and patients. BPIFrance and business angels participated in the round.

Teladoc’s Q1: increased revenue, increased net loss, dealing with slowing growth–as is CVS Health

May 2, 2024 | by

Teladoc had a passable Q1, given the sudden departure of their CEO, a lackluster 2023, and a downbeat (realistic?) 2024 forecast. The highlights were versus Q1 prior year:

  • Revenue increased 3% to $646.1 million. This exceeded their 2024 projection of $630 to $645 million but the percentage increase is below the 5.2% Teladoc is forecasting for the full year. Their US revenue grew 1% to $547.6 million while international revenue grew 13% to $98.5 million.
  • But net loss also increased far more on a percentage basis–18% to $81.9 million, or $0.49 per share. Some of the loss was due to stock-based compensation expense, severance expenses, and amortization of acquired intangibles. Due to these, the increased revenue did not offset or narrow losses.
  • Adjusted EBIDTA increased 20% to $63.1 million, which is positive.

Looking at their main market segments, their Integrated Care segment revenue grew 8% to $377.1 million, Once again, BetterHelp, their behavioral telehealth unit and one-time hope for growth, continued to disappoint with a 4% decrease in revenue to $269.0 million.

The forecast for Q2 is: 

  • Revenue $635 – $660 million
  • Net loss per share ($0.45) – ($0.35), slightly lower than Q1
  • Adjusted EBITDA $70 – $80 million

Integrated Care’s forecast is an increase of 2 to 5% in revenue, while BetterHelp’s remains weak with a decrease of 4 to 8% in revenue.

So far, cutting costs, higher margins, cutting jobs in data science and engineering, third-party (supplier?) costs, and getting on that ‘path to profitability’ has had limited results, at least to Mr. Market which continues to drop the stock–40% to date and deteriorating. On the earnings call, interim CEO and CFO Mala Murthy, in referring to this, said “We are not waiting. We have a plan to deliver, we have investments to execute, and that is absolutely our focus.” Will Mr. Market believe this in a shrinking market? The search for a permanent CEO is underway, and the replacement is expected to be named later this year. Teladoc release, Mobihealthnews, FierceHealthcare

The broader meaning? This Editor explored what happened at Teladoc and the aftermath after some of the dust settled [TTA 9 April]. The Teladoc foundational model as a stand-alone, mostly urgent care service is not growing but shrinking. It doesn’t coordinate care nor does it integrate well into providers. While the pandemic gave that model a lift, it also boosted integrated services as modules into patient portals, EHRs, population health, and other provider-based platforms. Among higher care need Medicare beneficiaries, usage was there but minimal detailed in two recent studies. Even asynchronous and telephonic telehealth gained since they were reimbursed or low cost. Before, during, and after the pandemic, there were too many telehealth companies for the limited demand. Add in the continuing proliferation of telementalhealth providers, still popping up like tulips in spring–another reason why BetterHelp, one of the earlier entrants, isn’t getting traction. FierceHealthcare adds more points such as over-supply cratering price (and the revenue model) and hybridization: white-labeling with providers, virtual specialty clinics such as those under Included Health’s, and partnerships with health plans and employers. 

CVS Health’s Q1 also wasn’t swell for reasons that are impacting their full year. High medical costs affected their Aetna plans, with high utilization in Medicare Advantage, inpatient admissions, and outpatient services were all high in Q1–$900 million higher than CVS expected. Lower MA STAR ratings will affect their forward Federal reimbursements, with one of their largest MA plans falling from 4.5 to 3.5 rating in 2024. According to CEO Karen Lynch, most of this utilization was from a patient usage reversion to pre-pandemic patterns. Their Q1 revenue of $88.4 billion was up 4% versus prior year with net income falling by almost half to $1.1 billion, both significantly below analysts’ expectations. CVS adjusted their full year downward, which led to their stock falling another 19%. Change Healthcare’s data breach is also affecting their forecasts with delayed claims, leading CVS to set a reserve of $500 million. HealthcareDive

Midweek news roundup: Optum exiting telehealth, laying off; Advocate Health selling MobileHelp; VA notifying 15M veterans re Change PHI breach, Oracle moving to Nashville–maybe? (updated)

May 1, 2024 | by

Optum Virtual Care closing, staff layoffs in progress. Optum Everycare CEO Jennifer Phalen on an 18 April internal conference call announced that the unit would close. According to sources, some employees would have layoff dates in July. No further details were available on other layoffs or plans for integrating Virtual Care’s capabilities into other Optum units, except for generalities. “We are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing pa­tients with a ro­bust net­work of providers for vir­tu­al ur­gent, pri­ma­ry and spe­cial­ty care op­tions,” and “We con­tin­u­al­ly re­view the ca­pa­bil­i­ties and ser­vices we of­fer to meet the grow­ing and evolv­ing needs of our busi­ness­es and the peo­ple we serve.” a spokesper­son for Unit­ed­Health said to End­points, a biopharma publication from the University of Kansas which broke the story.

For Optum, this is the second shoe drop about layoffs and closures in less than two weeks. Reports from social media and layoff-specific boards indicated that thousands were being laid off, from their plans to urgent care and providers [TTA 23 Apr]. These were not confirmed by Optum nor by UnitedHealth Group. It’s not known if this unit’s closure was included in the total. 

The larger picture is that it is symptomatic of the sudden growth, then equally sudden consolidation, of general telehealth. Optum opened the unit in April 2021 as the pandemic entered year 2. Utilizing existing capabilities, UHG claimed it facilitated more than 33 million telehealth visits in 2020, up from 1.2 million in 2019. The number looks sky high but in that time of practices closing it was a free-for-all in telehealth–and ‘facilitating’ is a nebulous catchword that could mean a practice using Facetime, telephones, or an EHR/population health platform module. Commercial claims for telehealth have remained at 4 to 5% since (FAIR Health, Jan 2024). Even during the pandemic’s first year, telehealth claims hit a peak of 13 percent in April 2020 that dropped fast to 6% by August 2020. Well over 60% are for behavioral telehealth claims.

A leading indicator: Last June, Optum Everycare’s CEO from their 2021 start, Kristi Henderson, a former Optum SVP for digital transformation, departed to become CEO of Confluent Health, a national network of occupational and physical therapy clinics. It was about as far away as one could get from telehealth, digital transformation, and Amazon Care, her former employer that expired in 2022.

Apparently, UHG and Optum see no further need for a virtual care specialty unit, instead integrating it into plans and other Optum services. According to MedCityNews, industry analysts aren’t surprised. Both Amwell and Teladoc have had well-known struggles. The latest: Walmart, after investing millions into their unit that included full clinics and a virtual care service, also made news on 30 April that it is closing both. Also greatly on UHG’s mind: cleanup after the Change debacle, making Mr. Market happy, and the looming antitrust action by DOJ. Becker’s, Healthcare IT News, 

In another sign that healthcare investors are selling off ancillary businesses, Advocate Health is selling PERS provider MobileHelp. It “no longer fit the strategic priorities of Advocate Health” according to their 22 April audit report (see document pages 10 and 13) and was authorized last December.

Advocate, through its investment arm Advocate Aurora Enterprises, acquired both MobileHelp, one of the earliest mobile PERS, and sister company Clear Arch Health, a remote patient monitoring provider, in April 2022. Cost was not disclosed at that time but later was reported to be $290.7 million. The plan at the time was to combine both MobileHelp and Clear Arch with a senior care/home health provider earlier acquired by Advocate for $187 million, Senior Helpers. That company was sold in March to Chicago-based private equity firm Waud Capital Partners for an undisclosed amount. The MobileHelp sale is expected to close later this year. Buyer and price are not disclosed. The expected loss on the MobileHelp sale was figured into FY 2023 as part of an asset impairment write-down of $150 million, which Advocate said was “related to the expected loss on the sale of MobileHelp.” The PERS and RPM business is a largely consolidated ‘cash cow’ type of business that (Editor’s prediction) will be snapped up by another player like Connect America, Alert One, or a smaller player like ModivCare. Milwaukee Business Journal, Becker’s, Crain’s Chicago Business (requires subscription)

VA admits that some veterans may be affected by Change Healthcare data breach, PII/PHI disclosure. While Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough at this time believes that “there’s no confirmation yet” that veteran data was exposed, the scope of the Change Healthcare breach has led VA to formally alert via email 15 million veterans and their families of the possibility. The email also included information “about the two years of free credit monitoring and identity theft protection” that Change Healthcare is offering to those affected by the attack. The VA maintains that the attack resulted in only a temporary delay in filling 40,000 prescriptions but did not cause “any adverse impact on patient care or outcomes,” according to a department spokesman. NextGov/FCW 26 April, 23 April 

In related news, HHS as of 19 April had not received any notification from Change Healthcare nor UHG. They are required to file a breach report as providers and also as covered entities. They have 60 days from the breach occurrence on 21 February to report, which is coming right up. Becker’s

If Larry said it, it must be true…assemble the moving boxes. At an Oracle conference in Nashville last week, Oracle chairman Larry Ellison said to Bill Frist of investment firm Frist Cressey Ventures that he planned to move the company to that city as “It’s the center of the industry we’re most concerned about, which is the healthcare industry.” It’s their second public Larry and Billy meetup in the last few months, the last in November at the Frist Cressey Ventures Forum where Ellison had previously touted Nashville. Ellison is investing in and building a 70-acre, $1.35 billion campus on Nashville’s riverfront. Oracle is currently HQ’d in Austin, Texas having moved in 2020 from Redwood City, California but with extensive facilities remaining in the state. Texas and Tennessee have one thing in common–a superior business climate. Both are long on lifestyle, though Austin is not as temperate (read, hot) as Nashville. What Nashville has that Austin doesn’t is being a healthcare hub. At least in Ellison’s view, healthcare is where it’s at and so is Nashville. So as long as he’s running Oracle from his manse on Lanai, Oracle does what Larry says. Healthcare Dive, Healthcare IT News, The Tennessean

More fun facts about Larry Ellison and Nashville: David Ellison, his son, is founder of Skydance Media, a major Hollywood production company (Mission: Impossible and others) and negotiating a zillion-dollar merger with Paramount Pictures. David’s wife is a singer trying to make it in Music City and they have a home there. Kind of like the age-old trend of moving the HQ near where the CEO’s living. On moving the HQ to Nashville from Austin, this would affect perhaps 2,500 workers based there currently. Most of Oracle’s workers are dispersed and work remotely. 6,400 of former Cerner-ites are still in Missouri and 7,000 remain in California. Big hat tip to HIStalk—scroll down and see more about Larry and Billy’s talk, which also covered cybersecurity, the NHS (which uses Cerner), and automating hospitals and the hospital-payer interface.