This week of HLTH has not been short of Big News from WBA, perhaps cleverly to ace out CVS, Amazon (facing retail monopoly charges from the FTC and 17 states), and Walmart. Regaining the lost momentum at Walgreens Boots Alliance will be a heavy lift. Enter Tim Wentworth as CEO from retirement. Mr. Wentworth formerly helmed Express Scripts, coming on after that company’s acquisition of pharmacy benefits manager Medco. When Express Scripts was acquired by Cigna in 2018, he headed their health services area, now Evernorth, retiring from there at the end of 2021. He is exactly what executive chair... Continue Reading
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Two studies: telehealth’s ‘generation gap’ and $22B target for healthcare generative AI–by 2032
J.D. Power notices that older users aren’t all that comfortable with telehealth. On a 1,000 point scale, pre-boomers (!) and Boomers, score a 671 while Gen Y and Gen Z score 714 for an average of 698. Those surveyed liked telehealth for convenience (28%) and receiving care quickly (17%). Issues for the older group are trust, digital channels, and appointment scheduling. The latter two are, in this Editor’s view, interface related, with many telehealth providers neglecting mobile and tablet-friendly platforms, making typefaces large enough, and backgrounds contrasty enough. CVS leads in satisfaction, surprisingly, in direct to consumer telehealth providers (744),... Continue Reading
Funding/new business roundup: General Catalyst’s HATco ‘health assurance’ venture and $6B portfolio merger, Brightside Health expands, Diana Health’s $34M, Headway’s $125M, Main Street Health’s $315M
With HLTH 2023 this week in Las Vegas, there’s the usual deluge of investment and ‘big news’ announcements, both before and during the conference. HLTH’s Biggest and Somewhat Mystifying News (so far) is that Big Investor General Catalyst now is getting directly into the healthcare transformation business with HATco. The Health Assurance Transformation Corporation is a fully-owned company that will be in the business of “health assurance”, defined as “a more affordable, accessible and proactive system of care” which is a very broad brush indeed that sounds like the promise of value-based care and the Triple Aim (remember?). HATco already... Continue Reading
News roundup: Veradigm facing Nasdaq delisting, UpHealth files Chapter 11, Virgin Pulse-HealthComp $3B merger, MidiHealth’s $25M Series A, Inbound Health’s $30M Series B
...cracked SPAC. MarketWatch, HIStalk. In more cheerful funding news: Employer wellness platform Virgin Pulse and benefits analytics platform HealthComp to merge. The $3 billion deal creates a combined entity that will improve outcomes and lower costs for primarily self-insured employers and members through the Homebase for Health platform. Chris Michalak of Virgin will serve as CEO of the combined entity upon anticipated closing in Q4. The merger is backed by New Mountain Capital, Marlin Equity Partners, Blackstone, and Morgan Health, with New Mountain Health to be majority owner. FierceHealthcare, Healthcare Dive, Virgin release MidiHealth backed by GV (Google Ventures) in... Continue Reading
Walgreens trying to reboot “healthcare transformation” momentum, looking for new CEO, settling with Theranos litigants
A $4.7 billion makeup for chairman Stefano Pessina. In the race among CVS Health, Walmart, and Amazon, something is not clicking with Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA). WBA was a late entrant in the diversification race but they certainly went big when they did, acquiring VillageMD, Summit Health, and CityMD plus at-home care provider CareCentrix and specialty pharmacy Shields Health Solutions. But the results have been disappointing. Their Q3 reported in June was negative [TTA 28 June]. Roz Brewer, appointed as CEO 2 1/2 years ago for her expertise in retail operations at Starbucks and Sam’s Club, was also tasked with... Continue Reading
Short takes: FTC’s Lina Khan’s vendetta on tech, employers disillusioned with virtual care, telepsychiatry cuts LOS and inpatient ED, Lotte’s AI-assisted telepsych diagnostics, ThymeCare’s $60M Series B
...Khan. In a phrase, she has an ax to throw at businesses that seek to expand or sell through M&A, based upon her subjective philosophies about antitrust that often conflict with established case law. The article features where she and the FTC commissioners routinely overstep guidelines and recusals, plus get reversed in Federal court. Khan’s nemesis is Amazon. Beware, Bezos. Our articles on the FTC follies, such as the changes to the HSR premerger notification filing process and the Draft Merger Guidelines, so you can Share The Alarm: Healthcare M&A hit a 3 year low in Q2 2023, to the... Continue Reading
Mid-week roundup: Babylon Rwanda update, CVS Health laying off 1,700+, Optum laying off too, Veradigm’s third non-compliance Nasdaq notice, AireHealth auctioning assets, Viome’s $86M raise + CVS retail kit deal
...disclose other layoffs to Healthcare Dive in other states where the number fell below WARN notice requirements These positions include assistants, data engineers, customer care pharmacists, actuary executives, corporate vice presidents, project managers, program managers, and managers/directors of network development. While these constitute only 2% of CVS’ overall workforce of 300,000, it is cold comfort to those affected, many of whom have worked years for Aetna or CVS. Becker’s The timing is revealed in the Becker’s Payer Issues article: When CVS acquired Aetna, “its agreement with state insurance regulators included a promise to keep employment levels at Aetna and its... Continue Reading
Weekend reading: Forbes picks the next $1B startups, is TV streaming analogous to the future of healthcare?
...raised $47 million and has revenue of $6 million. Is there a usable analogy between the TV streaming wars and healthcare’s future? This essay in Becker’s Hospital Review is unusual for them. It draws a line between the fragmentation, redundancy, and overlap in entertainment that streaming services such as Hulu, Disney+, and Netflix have created, to the fragmentation, redundancy, and overlap between health systems and health companies such as Optum, Humana, CVS Health, Walgreens, and even Amazon in taking care away from the hospital setting into clinics and the home, breaking the centralized hold that health systems have had on... Continue Reading
Babylon Health files for US Chapter 7 bankruptcy, winding down Babyl Rwanda and ending care for 2.8 million users (updated)
...the email was signed ‘Babylon Leadership’. The Gates Foundation did not comment on whether the foundation had been informed of Babylon’s plans to wind down service. Previous TTA coverage back to May: Babylon Health shuts US operations, goes into UK receivership, Babylon merger with AlbaCore and MindMaze collapses, selling UK and transitioning US businesses, bankruptcy anticipated, Babylon Health to go private with AlbaCore in planned ‘Take Private Proposal’, combine with MindMaze, Babylon Health to go private (includes summary of Q1 financials) This story is developing. *’Hull loss’ describes an aviation accident that results in catastrophic, unrecoverable damage to the aircraft.... Continue Reading
Mid-week roundup: DocGo in NY migrant service trouble, more DOJ scrutiny of UHG-Amedisys buy, Exor now $2.8B lead investor in Philips
...Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division in June. These are currently in 60-day public review open to 28 August. Both FTC and DOJ with premerger notification and Draft Merger Guidelines [TTA 20 July] are proposing significant additional information requirements and substantial tightening of what will be acceptable in mergers and acquisitions under new anti-competitive and antitrust guidelines. An educated guess is that DOJ and FTC will be looking at Amedisys’ fit and home health market share effect with UHG’s earlier acquisitions LHC Group and Contessa Health, now in Optum. A preview of coming attractions in M&A? The buy was announced in June... Continue Reading
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