TTA’s mini-blizzard: Masimo’s $9.9B sale, Kiani’s Big Comeback, UHG’s Hemsley’s conflicts, Veradigm’s retrenching, ’25 results for Amwell, Teladoc, plus Humana, Honest Health, more!

February 27, 2026 | by | No Comments

27 February 2026

A big two weeks for news, in between blizzards. We have a Hollywood Ending with the sale of Masimo monitoring to giant Danaher for a jumbo $9.9 billion–not bad for a company that survived a dramatic proxy battle, cyberattacks, and more. A Hollywood Comeback for its deposed CEO Joe Kiani. In the Muddling Through department are Veradigm, Teladoc, and Amwell. UnitedHealth’s drama also continues as the CEO comes under conflict of interest scrutiny. And Rock Health wants us to keep the Blue Side Up!

Please feel free to comment and pass along. Let me know if this is worth it to you!

Chutes & Ladders: Amwell’s ’25 loss, ’26 hopes; Teladoc’s flat 2025; Walgreens and Cigna layoffs; telehealth stable at 7%; Humana CenterWell buys MaxHealth clinics; Honest Health raises $140M

Veradigm won’t face SEC enforcement action, cuts 15% of staff, forecasts further retrenching for 2026 growth

Hollywood Ending, Part Deux: Joe Kiani goes on from Masimo as tech CEO plus board chair of three companies

UnitedHealth Group’s CEO Hemsley held investments in competitive companies: WSJ

Rock Health’s sunnier 2025: up 35% due to AI, but a tale of ‘have and have nots’

Hollywood Ending: Masimo patient monitoring selling to Danaher for $9.9B, will be standalone operating company

And from earlier this month….Summing up the speculation: will Oracle sell off Oracle Health/Cerner to finance $300B OpenAI datacenter buildout?

Oh yes, one more….So why is there a ‘100% Written by a human’ flag in the header?

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Chutes & Ladders: Amwell’s ’25 loss, ’26 hopes; Teladoc’s flat 2025; Walgreens and Cigna layoffs; telehealth stable at 7%; Humana CenterWell buys MaxHealth clinics; Honest Health raises $140M

February 27, 2026 | by | No Comments

Chutes first…

Legacy telehealth continues to struggle to find its place–and profitability.

Amwell expects to turn the positive operating cash flow corner in 2026…maybe. American Well closed out its 2025 with total revenue of $249.3 million, about 2% lower than 2024. Subscriptions were $132.4 million (53%) with Amwell Medical Group (AMG) visits earning revenue of $94.3 million. Losses narrowed versus last year with a net loss of $95.0 million versus 2024’s $212.6 million, and adjusted EBITDA of ($39.9 million) versus prior year’s ($134.4 million). Another bit of good news is that 2025 closed without debt and $182 million in cash. Telehealth visits totaled 4.5 million.

Their Q4 2025 revenue took a hit–$55.3 million was down 22.1% versus prior year, attributed to lower revenue from their Defense Health Agency (DHA) contract. It started with partner Leidos in 2023 but was reduced last year in several areas due to DOD budget cutbacks.  Their 2025 EBITDA loss improved to $10.3 million with a net loss $25.2 million.

The narrower losses were attributed to consolidating products such as inpatient tools, a large hardware business. and a virtual psychiatric care offering into a single technology enabled care platform that consolidates virtual care and digital health programs, plus integrates third-party services.

2026 is another year of retrenching. Projections are: revenue in the $195 to $205 million range, about $50 million lower than 2025; AMG visits between 1.32 and 1.37 million, and adjusted EBITDA in the range of between ($24 million) to ($18 million). Amwell also is projecting that operating cash flow will go positive during Q4 2026. Key to this is that the annual DHA contract renews this summer. Amwell release, Healthcare Dive, Yahoo Finance

Teladoc is also struggling to grow in a chaotic market, but like Amwell is paring down and going for the cash flow. Revenue was essentially flat (down 2%) at $2.53 billion in 2025 from $2.57 billion in 2024. 2025 operating free cash flow was also down 2% to $166.9 million. Net loss was reduced to $200 million from last year’s $1 billion with adjusted EBITDA $281.1 million. BetterHelp, their behavioral telehealth unit, fell 9% year over year to $950.4 million in revenue. Teladoc ended the year with $781.1 million in cash and cash equivalents.

The 2026 revenue forecast is also flat in the $2.5 billion range with adjusted EBITDA in the $266 – $308 million range, and still in the loss column with a net loss per share between $1.10 and $0.70, which doesn’t make shareholders or analysts happy. Teladoc is moving from subscription models to to visit-based revenue in integrated care to compensate for enrollment reductions at some client health plans in government programs plus reductions in ACA subsidies. The BetterHelp behavioral health unit is looking at another revenue reduction of up to 7%. Teladoc release, Healthcare Dive

Layoffs continue at Walgreens and Cigna. 

  • Walgreens is laying off 628 employees in Illinois and Texas. These were tracked through WARN notices: 469 positions in Illinois, its home state, by 1 June, plus 159 jobs in Texas because a distribution center is being closed. Walgreens also confirmed to press that it will be closing dozens of stores in 2026. This was expected after last September’s acquisition by Sycamore Partners. And there is more to come. 1,200 stores will be closing over the existing three-year plan, with 500 shutting down in FY 2025. Fast Company, Healthcare Finance News, Healthcare Dive
  • Cigna is cutting 2,000 jobs globally by the end of February. It’s a not insubstantial 3% of its 73,500-person workforce, which is 90% in the US. Affected business units, roles, or geographies are unknown, though no WARN notices have been sent to the Connecticut Department of Labor, where Cigna’s HQ is located. Cigna is well in the black with $6 billion in profits in 2025 and a projected 2026 revenue of $280 billion. Membership stands at 18.1 million, down 5% from 2024, largely due to Cigna’s sale of its Medicare business, including Medicare Advantage and supplements, to Health Care Services Corporation’s (HCSC) HealthSpring unit. Cigna earnings report, Becker’s

What’s up on that ladder?

Telehealth use in primary care has stabilized since 2023 at about 6 to 7%, according to a study by Epic Research. (Yes, that Epic). The study from July 2022 to October 2025 showed the decline from 8% to today’s range. Two other findings were also interesting:

  • Telehealth has consistently remained more common among patients from metropolitan areas compared to those from more rural areas–the opposite of what one would assume.
  • Telehealth use varied substantially by preferred language; many non-English groups had much higher rates than the rates among English-speaking patients. The study tracked patients speaking primarily Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, Persian, and Spanish. Many of their rates are above 10%.

Epic’s data comes from its EHR in health systems representing more than 300 million patient records from 1,800 hospitals and more than 42,000 clinics from 50 US states, Canada, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia. Healthcare Dive

FAIR Health, which takes a different sample of US commercial insurance claims, has also been steady for the past couple of years. In October and November 2025, telehealth visits accounted for 5% of claims, logically lower because of the methodology. Mental health related diagnoses account for 63% of telehealth visits, with 15.2 % urban and 7.7% rural, which corresponds to Epic’s findings. Primary care does not even register in their tracking.

Humana’s health services operating arm CenterWell acquired MaxHealth. MaxHealth is a West and South Florida-based primary care network  that provides care to 120,000 patients, with 80,000 patients in value-based care programs. The 82 owned and affiliated clinics consist of 54 owned primary care clinics, 4 owned specialty/ancillary clinics, and 24 downstream affiliate clinics. The purchase was from private equity firm Arsenal Capital Partners and the cost was not disclosed. MaxHealth clinics will join CenterWell Senior Primary Care. Release, Healthcare Dive

Honest Health raised $140 million. The unlettered capital raise for this value-based care enablement company was led by NewSpring Healthcare with participation from existing investors and institutional partners, including Rubicon Founders, Oak HC/FT, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS), and Durable Capital Partners. Nashville-based Honest Health is physician-led and its CEO Rob Bessler MD is a physician entrepreneur who previously founded Sound Physicians. The new funds are intended for expansion into new markets, deepening partnerships with health systems, and improving technology-enabled care coordination. Release, Pulse 2.0

News roundup: MHS Genesis EHR completes US rollout, telehealth selective savings by disease, CarePredict’s $29M funding, Amazon Alexa *Spying on You*

July 14, 2023 | by

At least one part of Oracle Cerner’s work is done. The Military Health System (MHS), which covers 9.6 million active duty beneficiaries and 205,000 medical providers, announced yesterday that the rollout of the Genesis EHR is complete in the continental US. The final go-live was at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which covers 6,800 clinicians and providers in military hospitals and clinics across Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, Indiana, Texas, and Kentucky. It was also deployed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA Corps, which is under the Department of Commerce. The final 14% of the MHS system is overseas. That rollout will start in September 2023, including Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany and Royal Air Force Lakenheath in the UK. Bases in Guam, South Korea, and Japan will follow in October. DOD’s one joint facility with the VA, the James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Chicago, will deploy in March 2024. All other VA healthcare centers are on hold indefinitely. With the wrapup of MHS Genesis and the pause on VA’s Millenium rollout, Oracle has reportedly laid off over 500 staff on these Federal projects [TTA 16 June]. DVIDS release

 Telehealth’s selective savings. A new study out of the University of Texas-Austin McCombs School of Business found, like other studies such as Epic Research’s, that telehealth visits reduced future outpatient visits, in their study within 30 days, by 14%. This saved $239 per patient in outpatient costs. But telehealth was more effective for some specialties than others. It had the most impact on cost reduction for behavioral health, metabolic disorders, dermatology, and musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders, with a significant reduction of 0.21 outpatient visits per quarter (an equivalent cost reduction of $179). This suggested to the researchers a substitution of telehealth versus traditional clinic visits. But telehealth’s impact was nearly nil when it came to circulatory, respiratory, and infectious diseases, not significantly reducing the number of future visits or costs. The study sampled hospital-based outpatient clinics in Maryland from 2012 (not a typo) to 2021. Becker’s, UT News, Informs Pubonline (abstract only)  

Senior living monitoring system CarePredict adds $29 million from four main investors. This is a Series A-3, which one assumes adds on to an existing Series A, which was $9.5 million in 2019. The round was co-led by SV Health Investors’ Medtech Convergence Fund and Aspire Healthtech Partners with existing institutional investors Secocha Ventures and Las Olas Venture Capital plus private family offices and individual investors. CarePredict pioneered a wearable bracelet, the Tempo, that wirelessly tracks residents’ activities of daily living (ADLs) in assisted living (AL), independent living (IL), and continuing care (CCRC) settings. Interpretation of ADLs in a platform can predict changes in health and wellbeing leading to better health and extended residence. CarePredict has expanded its platform reporting with other tracking such as context beacons, visitor and wander management, PinPoint digital contact tracing, and family communication apps. CarePredict release, Mobihealthnews

How much does Amazon have on you? If you are a user of Amazon’s Echo system, you already know that Alexa is always listening to you. What you may not know is that Amazon stores that information in a database, including parts of overheard conversations that have nothing to do with Alexa, since Alexa is always on. Even if you (like your Editor) don’t have an Echo but have a Kindle (unlike your Editor) or use the app residing on most smartphones, Amazon knows what you read, what you flip through, and your start and stop times. The Amazon Sidewalk mesh network, used with Alexa and Ring cameras, extends the reach of your router and shares your network with your neighbors. This is in addition to your shopping and even what you look at. In the context of the rollout of Amazon Clinic pending, delayed to 19 July [TTA 27 June], where Amazon is 1) only an intermediary to providers but 2) demand access to all your PHI and PII before allowing access to them, can we as professionals admit this is a glaring privacy violation and that the FTC is actually right?

Kim Komando, well known for her radio and online shows advising non-techies on tech, has an excellent article on how Amazon is piling up information on us all. This is based on a 2021 Reuters investigation and also contains a link to her interview with the two Reuters reporters. The article also describes how to find out what Amazon has on you. Warning–they don’t make it easy. She also addresses the Amazon clinic issue in a FoxNews article.

Few specialty telehealth visits require in-person follow up within 90 days: Epic Research study 2020-2022

December 21, 2022 | by

35 million visits make the case that virtual visits can stand alone, even in medical specialties–but how much was the pandemic a factor? Epic Research, a public benefit corporation owned by Epic Systems Corporation, analyzed telehealth consults over 26 months in a dual team study. The study found that most patients did not require an in-person follow-up appointment in that specialty within 90 days. The dual team study (two teams working independently) reviewed US EHR data collected from 1 March 2020 through 31 May 2022.

There was an extremely wide spread by specialty both in the number of visits and in-person follow-up within the three-month window. 

Looking at the study findings:

  • The lowest in-person follow-up percentage was in genetics at 4%, followed by nutrition at 10%; the highest–unsurprisingly–was obstetrics at 92%.
  • Far and away, the specialty with the greatest number of telehealth visits, over 4.3 million, was mental health and psychiatry. Their in-person follow-up was 15% of that number. That ‘cadence of care’ cited in the study report could be in part due to state medical regulations and insurance guidelines requiring in-person review, especially when prescribing Schedule 2 (those with a high possibility of abuse and dependence) or even Schedule 4 drugs.
  • Other specialties falling below 25% of in-person follow-up were endocrinology and neurology (both with 1 million telehealth visits), plus diabetes services, nephrology, pulmonology, medication management, gastroenterology, rheumatology, and addiction.
  • Cardiology and surgery, with both at 1.4 million telehealth visits, surprisingly had follow-up percentages around 43%
  • Above 50% in follow-up are geriatrics and fertility, both of which require more in-person examination. Geriatrics also covers a broad range of chronic condition care management in patients.

In looking at the numbers, this Editor will point to three situational factors unique to the pandemic period and its aftermath that may skew these findings on in-person follow-up visits to a lower range: 

  1. Most medical offices in the US closed from the start of the pandemic (about March 2020) and did not reopen until mid-year. Many health specialty practices and psychiatric clinics did not reopen for in-person visits until the fall or even later.
  2. Online mental health consults took off like a rocket–and are coming back to earth with greater scrutiny of prescribed Schedule 2 drugs (see Cerebral Health, Talkspace, et al.)
  3. Continuing patient apprehension on in-person visits into this year
  4. The continuing of public health emergency (PHE) compensation for telehealth visits into 2022 both in Medicare and private insurance

A flaw in the article is that these points are not considered in influencing in-person visits in the future.