TTA’s August Ice Cream Run 3: less activity is more for startups, hard looks at Commure and OpenAI, acquisitions by UHS, DocGo, R1–and UK’s Alertacall sold

August 20, 2026 | by

20-24 August 2026

Enjoy the August Doldrums, because this fall might be awfully…eventful. Our Must Reads are rather Doomful, between exposés on General Catalyst and Commure’s business practices, plus OpenAI’s accelerating troubles that look like Sam Altman is flirting hard with the Devil of Demise. A positive Must Read is on early-stage funding–how doing less will get your company more. Our news roundup highlights several acquisitions and Anthropic partnering with EHR PointClickCare. Speaking of sales, UK’s Alertacall has been sold after great success, and will remain independent.

On the hot subject of AI writing and AI Copy Slop, find out how to spot and avoid it in our thoughts on why TTA remains stubbornly 100% Written By Humans. Grab the cuppa for this one. Else you’ll faint like Pepper!

Please feel free to comment on the articles and pass along this Alert. Let me know if this is worth it to you! Also check out my personal page on Substack.

This Week’s Must Reads: how lack of focus dooms startup financing, Commure’s Sea of Red Flags Flapping, and what happens if OpenAI expires?

News roundup: UHS-Talkspace $850M buy final, DocGo to buy Hicuity Health for $52M in stock/debt, R1 to buy Humata Health, PointClickCare EHR to integrate Anthropic’s AI

UK’s Alertacall sold to Constellation Software’s Volaris Group

Last week’s headlines

Why Readers can be assured that TTA is 100% Written by Humans (A handy guide to detecting AI Copy Slop)

News potpourri: OpenAI sued for practicing unlicensed medicine”, Cleveland Clinic med drone delivery, Solventum separates out health info systems, Unlimited Technology RCM in 3.8M data breach, Samsung Galaxy Buds FDA cleared for hearing assist

VA moves to secure Oracle for its EHR Modernization through mid-2031 (More reasons beyond the obvious)

Breaking report: Oracle drawing up plans to lay off employees in “double digit percentages” by 1 September (We’re waiting for this shoe to drop)

Recent Headlines and Must Reads

News roundup #2: Function Health’s jumbo $450M raise from General Catalyst, Hinge Health’s $105M Cylinder buy, and Throne Science’s $10M Series A

News roundup #1: AI governance ‘in’ with Feds, ATA; Centene’s shrinking but more profitable future; repositions and partnerships for DispatchHealth, WHOOP; Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand modernization

Chutes & Ladders, Oracle Edition: Surprise! Project Jupiter data center build overages, “social costs” multiply. Pentagon inks $7B, 10 year deal for software.

This week’s Must Read: the dangerous financing of AI data center buildouts–and how they resemble the 2020 health tech boom (Remember the SPAC boom that cracked and left nearly all companies and billions in the dust?)

A gloomy view on Oracle going forward: debt, cash flow, and dependence on OpenAI

 

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News roundup: UHS-Talkspace $850M buy final, DocGo to buy Hicuity Health for $52M in stock/debt, R1 to buy Humata Health, PointClickCare EHR to integrate Anthropic’s AI

August 19, 2026 | by

As we near Labor Day, we enter the Atlantic Intertropical Convergence Zone, a/k/a The Doldrums. Given the calendar, monsoons, and the fifth UK/European heat wave plus forest fires, perhaps the Doldrums are an improvement.

Giant Universal Health Services (UHS) $835 million acquisition of Talkspace closed right on time–Q3. The buy, announced in March, is now complete with Talkspace becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary based in NYC. [TTA 12 Mar] UHS is acquiring Talkspace for $835 million or $5.25 per share, a 10% boost on their closing on 8 March. What Talkspace adds to UHG is a full range of behavioral health systems to complement its in-person providers and provide future growth. For UHS CEO Marc Miller, “We’ll now be the only company in the United States that will have a nationally scaled, end-to-end continuum in behavioral health. We’ll be able to offer something that nobody else offers.”

Talkspace was one of many cracked SPACs of the 2020-22 period, debuting in June 2021 with a valuation of $1.4 million. Six months later, shareholders sued for securities fraud, and within a year it became a dollar stock. But it survived and recovered. What Talkspace brings to UHS’s provider network and health services is a 50-state network plus Puerto Rico of virtual behavioral therapy and 6,000 therapists. Their primary markets are health plans, employers, employee assistance programs, schools and government organizations plus self-pay. Their 2025 closed well with a 22% revenue increase to $229 million and net income of $7.8 million. The release is opaque on workforce and management transitioning. UHS is based in King of Prussia PA and had 2025 revenues over $17 billion. Mobihealthnews, Healthcare Dive

Mobile health and transportation provider DocGo to buy Hicuity Health for debt and stock. The terms are interesting ones. From the release, DocGo is assuming $52 million in debt now held by Perceptive Advisors, which matures in December 2029. Perceptive will provide an additional $50 million in debt financing to DocGo. It’s staged in multiple tranches, the first of which is $12.5 million to fund a services agreement pre-closing between DocGo and Hicuity. DocGo will also in the interim provide management services to Hicuity. Hicuity will become a subsidiary of DocGo’s Ambulnz Holdings. Hicuity is a provider of high acuity clinical care including tele-ICU, virtual nursing, and telemetry monitoring services  for health systems, hospitals and post-acute facilities.

DocGo has had its own challenges dating back to 2023 with a NYC no-bid contract for illegal immigrant services that turned out to be an expensive fiasco [TTA 18 Sep 2023]. DocGo currently trades on Nasdaq, closing today at $0.4752, a low based on missing Q2 projections. Release, Mobihealthnews, TradingView

Revenue cycle management company R1 will acquire prior authorization automation developer Humata Health. Acquisition cost is not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close by the end of Q3. After closing, the Humata team will “enhance” R1’s R37 innovation lab, R1’s agentic AI development team. R1 plans to connect Humata’s technology to their Phare OS, an AI automation platform for pre-bill workflows for authorization, utilization review, coding and documentation. R1 is a private company, with RCM used by 1,000 providers, including 95 of the top 100 US health systems, and handles over 600 million payer transactions annually.  Release, Mobihealthnews

Senior post-acute and LTC EHR/software company PointClickCare to integrate Anthropic’s AI directly into its software platform. This strategic initiative is being done through Anthropic’s new partnership, Ode with Anthropic, to enable enterprises to deploy AI by providing a team of experienced AI engineers. Ode was formed earlier this year with Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, and a consortium of global investors including Apollo Global Management, General Atlantic, GIC, Goldman Sachs, Leonard Green & Partners, and Sequoia. The release is remarkably devoid of specifics such as timing and client rollout. Mobihealthnews

Week-end short takes: Change Healthcare/UHG breach notification starting (updated); fundings for Pomelo Care, Marigold Health, Humata Health

June 21, 2024 | by

Change Healthcare finally starting notifications, but not yet to consumers. A press statement today from Change/UnitedHealth Group confirmed that the long process of notifications has started with hospitals, insurers, and other customers. Individuals and practices will not be notified until late July. Change confirmed that the Blackcat/ALPHV cyberattack exposed names, addresses, health insurance information, and personal information like Social Security numbers, but at the individual level investigation isn’t finalized. At this point, they have reviewed over 90% of impacted files and have not seen signs that doctors’ charts or full medical histories were taken. Technically, UHG has made the 21 June deadline stated in the Hassan/Blackburn Senate letter [TTA 19 June] but not within the 60-day HHS-OCR window, which opens them up to an HHS fine. After paying a cyberransom of $22 million in bitcoin and uncounted (to us) millions in rebuilding systems, HHS’ fine may look like the lesser cost of doing business. The Change website also contains a very carefully worded ‘HIPAA Substitute Notice’ that reads like a consumer data breach notification. AP via Yahoo! News UK   One wonders if there’s a fair amount of ‘buyer’s regret’ going on at UHG in fighting so hard to buy Change. Due diligence would have helped over that year-plus.

Update: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced earlier this week that the provider financial assistance program will be ending 12 July as billing activities have largely resumed. It has advanced over $2.55 billion in payments to Medicare Part A providers and $717.2 million to Part B providers. FierceHealthcare

Fundings this week:

Virtual maternity support platform Pomelo Care scored $46 million in Series B funding. Lead investors are Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and First Round Capital with participation from Stripes, BoxGroup, Operator Partners, and SV Angel. Pomelo’s markets for virtual fertility, pregnancy and newborn care from preconception through a baby’s first year services are employers, health plans and providers. The company claims 3 million covered lives across 46 states through their commercial and Medicaid health plan partners. Release, Mobihealthnews

Telemental health provider Marigold Health now has an $11 million Series A. Marigold is structured as an anonymous social network where people with mental health and substance use conditions provide peer-based support. Lead investors for the Series A are Rock Health and Innospark Ventures. Additional participants are the Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA), Wavemaker360, Stand Together Ventures Lab, Epsilon Health Investors, Koa Labs, VNS Health Plan and KdT Ventures. Their substance use disorder (SUD) programs are currently available to 25,000 members in Delaware, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. The new funding will be used for expansion to at least four additional states by the end of 2025. Release (Marketwatch), Mobihealthnews

Humata Health, which has developed AI-based technology to automate prior authorizations for payers and providers, closed an unlettered $25 million funding round. Lead investors are Blue Venture Fund (representing the majority of BCBS plans) and LRVHealth (representing nearly 30 health systems and payers), with participation from Optum Ventures, .406 Ventures, Highmark Ventures, and VentureforGood. The funding will be used to broaden its generative AI technologies, expand their provider base, and begin to partner with payers and delegated entities. Humata bought the base prior authorization technology from Olive AI out of its bankruptcy [TTA 31 Oct 2023]. Its founding chairman and CEO is Jeremy Friese, MD, who had been Olive AI’s president for their payer business after selling Verata Health, also in the prior authorization automation area, to Olive.  Release, FierceHealthcare