TTA’s Unofficial Summer kickoff: breaking up UnitedHealth to save it, post-GLP-1 weight gain, soft robots, NZ telehealth controversy, Midi Health widening women’s health, AssistIQ, Ambience, more!

May 30, 2025 | by

30 May 2025

Brrrr….it’s unofficially summer as we leave May behind. Our big article this week is your Editor’s think-piece on breaking up UnitedHealth Group in order to save it–and healthcare. We also look at post-GLP-1 weight gain–and what it means for providers, in-person and telehealth, ‘soft’ robotics out of Scotland, NZ’s telehealth war with GPs, and what’s doing at companies like Midi Health, AssistIQ, Ambience, Auxira, and Yosi Health. And plenty of weekend reading and viewing!

Weekend reading/viewing (for me too): Rural telehealth blackouts and value-based care’s ‘utopia’ (Set aside the time)

Short takes: Midi Health’s longevity care for women covered by (some) insurance, NZ government 24/7 telehealth scored by GPs, Auxira tele-cardiology follow-up launches (Two disappointments that look like advances)

News roundup: GLP-1 weight regain real, soft robots walk off 3D printer, Ambience’s AI coding beats doctors by 27%, Get a Second Opinion debuts, $11.5M for AssistIQ (Reality bites GLP-1s and a soft robot wee bairn)

Job Posting: Yosi Health seeks Demand Generation Manager and Manager, Data Analytics & Reporting

Should free-falling UnitedHealth Group be broken up? Or break itself up to survive, before it becomes another GE? (updated) (Not a rant, more a ‘get going’ to avoid disaster!)

From last week: The major news the week before US Memorial Day was the Hinge Health IPO, the first for digital health in two years–but the downside was that it was at a lower valuation. Denouements abounded with most 23andMe genetic assets bought by Regeneron, without a drink of Lemonaid. WeightWatchers’ time may have passed, new heads for Calibrate and Oak Street, and two more ‘arranged marriages’, Smarter Technologies and Fuze Health. An update on the VA EHRM in the budget. Masimo’s recovering, as is Ted of Strata-gee. 

News roundup 22 May: an inflight ‘save’ and AliveCor’s KardiaMobile, rolling out the VA/Oracle EHR in ‘waves’, Fuze Health formed from LetsGetChecked/Truepill, hacking and ransomware 92% of PHI data breaches (A renaming of a 2024 ‘arranged marriage’–can it be saved?)

News roundup: Hinge Health public @$32/share, lower valuation. Is WeightWatchers game over? Calibrate replaces CEO, new prez for Oak Street, NMC gets ‘Smarter’ rolling up 3 portfolio companies, another splash of investor ‘cold water’ (The first health tech IPO in 2 years and ‘smushing’ when they can’t)

Update: Masimo’s website status and an analysis of the Sound United sale (Getting up and running post-attack, but what happened?)

23andMe sold to Regeneron for $256M in court-supervised bankruptcy, sans Lemonaid. And is it worth it? (We come up with a number, it’s likely)

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Donna Cusano, Editor In Chief
donna.cusano@telecareaware.com

Telehealth & Telecare Aware – covering news on latest developments in telecare, telehealth and eHealth, worldwide.

Weekend reading/viewing (for me too): Rural telehealth blackouts and value-based care’s ‘utopia’

May 29, 2025 | by

Your Editor recommends grabbing lunch or a cuppa for these lengthy reads/views:

Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Blackouts. This is mostly about the billions spent in ‘last mile’ programs since the Clinton Administration (!) through the first Trump Administration that were supposed to subsidize better internet connectivity to the un- and poorly connected in US rural areas. This Editor has written about both the FCC Rural Health Program, state programs funded by Covid money, and more pilots going back a decade that never seemed to culminate in success. The programs were makeshift and while some have worked, have left nearly 3 million other rural Americans, young and old, in “dead zones” where even where there is connectivity, there’s not enough bandwidth for telehealth. It focuses on about one-third of West Virginia: 14 counties where high-speed internet deserts overlap with health care provider shortages. Warning, mildly ax-grinding political. Published in the Daily Yonder from KFF Health News.

Value-Based Care: Sluggish Adoption or an Unrealistic Utopia? This panel discussion up on YouTube hosted by Alex Koshykov brings together Sergei Polevikov (AI Health Uncut, see sidebar), Arvind R. Cavale (Clinical Endocrinologist, Diabetes & Endocrinology Consultants of Pennsylvania, LLC), Sally Lewis (Swansea University Professor Value in Health Management), and Mendel Erlenwein (Founder and CEO of CareCo) to discuss what the infamous VBC is really (again) all it’s cracked up to be. It’s supposed to be all about the outcomes, but when was the last time a patient walked in and asked for ‘value’? Having played in the ACO world where the mantra was VBC all the time, like ACOs what it meant went from three supports to four and in the view of whomever you were speaking with. 1 hour 20 minutes.