Thursday roundup: Kaiser-Geisinger won’t close till ’24, Validic buys Trapollo, Veradigm’s ’22 financials delayed again, ORA telehealth’s $10M Series A, ATA adds 3 to board

May 18, 2023 | by

Some more reveals on the Kaiser Permanente/Risant Health/Geisinger Health deal. Perhaps the most significant one in Kaiser’s quarterly financial statements was that the closing with Geisinger is projected to be sometime in 2024, subject to the usual regulatory approvals. As announced in April, Geisinger will be the founding system of a new non-profit group, Risant Health, that will bring together a targeted five to six non-profit community health systems. Financial disclosures were also made that were centered on the timing of substantial investments and commitments:

  • Kaiser’s financial commitments to Risant will be made in the five years following closing. The $5 billion previously announced is the upper end of the support. Confusingly, Kaiser is also committing to a minimum investment of $400 million over five years inclusive of funds generated by Risant Health. 
  • Risant’s support and investment into Geisinger will end earlier, in 2028, but in that time will make an investment of a minimum of $2 billion to support Geisinger’s hospital, technology, and strategic development. It will be inclusive of funds generated by both Risant and Geisinger.
  • Risant will also make available to Geisinger no less than $100 million” through 2028 to support expansions of Geisinger’s health plan and care delivery services into bordering Pennsylvania communities.
  • Risant will also make available to Geisinger funds for research and education for 10 years after the 2024 closing

Kaiser’s Q1 was far better than its money-losing ($4.5 billion) 2022, with $1.2 billion in net income. Geisinger has not yet reported Q1, but it had a $842 million net loss in 2022.  FierceHealthcare

Digital health/personalized care company Validic is buying Trapollo, a similar connected care company. Both have platforms facilitating chronic care patient management via remote care and EHR integration. The acquisition price and workforce transitions were not disclosed. Trapollo’s former owner, Cox Communications, will become a shareholder in Validic. Trapollo senior VP/general manager Steve Nester will have the same title at Validic. It will remain at the Validic HQ in Durham, NC, with Trapollo’s former distribution center remaining in Sterling, VA. This continues the trend of consolidation of businesses in similar or complementary services. Release

Veradigm, the former Allscripts, 2022 financials continue to be in a tangle. As previously reported [TTA 3 Mar], Veradigm delayed its Q4 and FY 2022 reporting due to a software flaw that affected its revenue reporting going back to 2021. On 22 March, this expanded to their extending their year-end audit and 10-K filing because of “internal control deficiencies related to revenue recognition.” In a recent SEC filing, they stated that they may be able to file their 10-K by 14 June, but cannot guarantee it. The revenue impact may be as high as $40 million and affect their 2021 closing. HIStalk 5/17/23

Singapore’s ORA Telehealth just scored the region’s largest Series A raise–US$10 million. It was co-led by TNB Aura and Antler with participation from Gobi Partners, Kairous Capital, and GMA Ventures for a total funding to date above US$17 million. ORA is unique in that it’s a vertically integrated platform that markets to a young customer base (average age: 38) on three platforms: Modules (676 different formulations of prescription skincare), OVA (women’s health), and andSons (men’s health).

The American Telemedicine Association (ATA) welcomed three additions to its board this week:

  • Marc Adelson, JD, Teladoc Health’s deputy chief legal and global chief compliance officer. Prior to joining Teladoc in 2011, he was  co-founder and executive legal director of the Institute for Patient Safety & Quality in Virtual Care, the first federally qualified patient safety organization (PSO) focused on virtual care.
  • Kavita Patel, MD, MS, a practicing primary care physician at Mary’s Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Washington DC and Maryland. She is also a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, an NBC/CNBC/MSNBC contributor, and was formerly director of policy for the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement in the Obama administration
  • Sarah Pletcher, MD, MHCDS, system vice president and executive medical director for strategic innovation at Houston Methodist, and responsible for advancing a wide range of virtual and other innovative care models and solutions.

HealthSpot winds out to Ch. 7 liquidation, assets for sale

March 11, 2016 | by

The object lesson of HealthSpot continued its sad revelations in a Columbus, Ohio Federal bankruptcy court Thursday (10 March) with the confirmation of liquidation under Chapter 7 rather than reorganization under Chapter 11. According to the report in MedCityNews, the bankruptcy trustee is now accepting offers for the assets valued by HealthSpot at $5.1 million. The bulk of these assets–$3.5 million–consist of 191 telemedicine kiosks of which 54 had been deployed with customers such as Rite Aid and Cleveland Clinic. The trustee has been permitted by the court to list these assets on a website. Whether there is any market for the hardware, or the intellectual property of HealthSpot, is a very open question indeed.

Some digging by this Editor has revealed a possible precipitating event to the company’s shutdown, and an obvious, non-recoupable drain on the time and funds of a teetering company. A District Court order issued 4 December on the patent infringement legal action by Nevada-based Computerized Screening [TTA 8 Jan] is now available online. It appears to have been conceded by Computerized Screening as “non-infringement on the basis of the absence of the limitation of “controller”” which is technically a win for HealthSpot. But HealthSpot then sought in September to collect attorney’s fees of a stunning $829,500 from Computerized Screening (more…)

HealthSpot files for Chapter 7 liquidation (updated)

January 19, 2016 | by

The shock continues with HealthSpot. On Wednesday the company filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Ohio in Columbus. The laundry list: assets of $5.2 million, about $3.5 million in inventory, and $23.3 million in liabilities, including convertible notes of $10 million from cable/broadband company Cox Communications, $6 million from investor Xerox and an undisclosed amount from the Ohio Development Services Agency. HealthSpot had raised close to $44 million since 2011. Their bankruptcy attorney David Whittaker cited cash flow; with only $1.1 million in revenue over the past three years, according to the filing, including $600,000 in 2015, no elaboration was needed. There’s not much left in assets to sell: 191 kiosks, mostly in storage (137) and 54 operating but shuttered at customer sites. The remaining value in liquidation (a/k/a pennies on the dollar) is dependent on whether the name, the kiosks and the IP are purchased. The last is problematic due to the current legal action by Computerized Screening [TTA 8 Jan] We hope this is not a sad harbinger of digital health in 2016, though we have already sensed that the unicorns are heading Over The Rainbow or wherever they go to pasture, but it’s not reassuring. Columbus Business First, MedCityNews.

Update: Neil Versel in his Throwback Thursday took a look at HealthSpot’s steak and salad days at International CES 2013. (See comments for this Editor’s impressions of HealthSpot at ATA 2014.) Perhaps good marketing, but symptomatic of the capital burn, doomed by a lack of sales and quite possibly, a solution that would have knocked it out of the park in 2010. As the old fighter pilot said, ‘timing and luck are everything.’

Qualcomm Life, Cox Communications buy into integration–differently (US/FR) updated

September 15, 2015 | by

Qualcomm Life, known for building partnerships with independent companies to form a continuum in transitional/chronic care management utilizing the HealthyCircles platform [TTA 19 Dec 14], yesterday announced not a partnership but an acquisition–Capsule Tech, a company that builds systems for healthcare facilities, mainly hospitals, to collect and integrate data from myriad medical devices. Their medical device information system (MDIS) is dubbed SmartLinx and is used by 1,930 hospital clients in 38 countries. Headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts, Capsule has international offices in France, Singapore, China, Australia, UAE and Brazil. Majority owner was Turenne Capital, a French PE company. Acquisition terms were not disclosed. Release. Also Forbes, Neil Versel in MedCityNews.

Update: Fortune is quite bullish on how this aids Qualcomm in narrowing the quality gap of data transmission between the home and the hospital setting.

Cox Communications, the third largest cable and internet company in the US with ad media and business data divisions, is dipping more than a tentative toe in healthcare with last week’s acquisition of Trapollo, a program design/supply chain/logistics provider that currently works with multiple telehealth, telecare and monitoring device companies. Cox is clearly seeking another type of integration of their data carriage capabilities with systems and programs; they have also invested in HealthSpot Station’s virtual visit/telehealth kiosk and formed a strategic alliance with Cleveland Clinic. Release.

Neil Versel’s columns also note IBM Watson‘s growth and development of its own Care Manager with Apple HealthKit/ResearchKit [TTA 10 Sep] and Salesforce’s entry into patient management with Health Cloud, with another big announcement rumored to be on the way.