TTA’s Spring Fever: VA resumes Oracle EHR rollout, Click clicks on $50M, 27% layoff, IKS Health may buy TruBridge, and TELCOR’s tuck-in of Sample.

April 16, 2026 | by | No Comments

 

17 April 2026

The last couple of weeks must have exhausted everyone, because this week is downright sleepy. As scheduled, VA finally resumed its Oracle Health EHR rollout with four health systems in Michigan–the first since 2022. Nine more to come if these go well. For companies, spring fever deals were absent. Digital schizophrenia adjunct treatment Click Therapeutics raised both $50 million to move to commercialization, then pink slipped 27% of current staff. TELCOR tucked in Sample to bolster AI  in the RCM area. Pending in RCM, IKS Health may be making a $600 million offer for TruBridge–but that hasn’t been finalized. Yet.

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Chutes & Ladders: Click Therapeutics raises $50M, lays off 27%; India’s IKS Health in talks to buy TruBridge for over $600M; TELCOR buys Sample for RCM expansion

VA’s Oracle EHR resumes go-lives at four Michigan systems–finally

Last week, though, was fairly stupendous, including an indictment…

Two weekend ‘must reads’: the New Yorker’s Sam Altman/OpenAI exposé–and comments; a further deep dive into Carbon Health’s implosion

Perspectives: Exploring the Telehealth Extension: Building Infrastructures for Better Access

Funding/deal roundup: WHOOP’s $575M Giant raise, Anthropic buys med AI startup for $400M, early stage fundings for Jimini, Insight Health; Noom buys compounder; Mount Sinai NY to embed OpenEvidence

NY Times’ highly questionable but glowing–and viral–portrait of AI-created GLP-1 e-prescriber and marketer Medvi

Former VA EHRM executive director Federally charged with accepting vendor cash and gifts, making false statements

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Chutes & Ladders: Click Therapeutics raises $50M, lays off 27%; India’s IKS Health in talks to buy TruBridge for over $600M; TELCOR buys Sample for RCM expansion

April 15, 2026 | by | No Comments

So far, not a lot of ups and downs this week….

What’s both a Ladder and a Chute?

Click Therapeutics put together a healthy Series D of $50 million to commercialize its digital therapeutic for the treatment of the experiential negative symptoms of schizophrenia. That’s a cheerful earful, except for the reported 27% of their employees who just got chuted with a pink slip. In the reported range of 100-250 employees, that means 27 to 67 employees being told ‘no work for you’ after bringing the company to the commercialization point. That is a deep cut.

Boehringer Ingelheim and Click jointly developed the digital technology, which received Breakthrough Device Designation by the FDA in 2024 as an investigational technology. It provides an an adjunct to standard antipsychotic therapy through interactive psychosocial intervention techniques.

With the $50 million funding, Boehringer turned over commercialization to Click. What is odd here is that companies with investigational tech and large partners usually keep the staff lean. Commercialization and funding then means that hires change from researchers to marketers, sales, and compliance, for a net gain. The next question is…when?

Austin Speier, chief strategy officer, commented to Behavioral Health Business: “While we are incredibly excited about the potential of CT-155, that shift means making hard changes to our team to match our new commercial mission. These were not decisions we made lightly, and we are deeply grateful to everyone who helped us reach this stage.” CT-155, as it is formally known, does not yet have FDA clearance. It has a Phase III study, CONVOKE (NCT05838625), a Phase III, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, 16-week study evaluating the efficacy and safety of CT-155 versus a digital control app. Neither the BHB and FierceBiotech articles nor Click’s release reveal a timeline for FDA clearance and marketing. Which means that final FDA approval may be more distant than the funding and turnover make it appear.

Indian RCM provider IKS Health seeks to add TruBridge’s RCM for $675 million. Talks are reportedly in an advanced stage with an all-cash offer funded by a $675 million debt facility from banks like Citi, Deutsche Bank, and JP Morgan. It covers both purchase price and refinances TruBridge’s existing debt. No formal offer has been tendered to TruBridge’s board or shareholders. Surprisingly, this has gained little notice in the US healthcare press.

TruBridge provides HIT, an EHR, and RCM for health systems and practices. It is both established from the late 1990s, when RCM was new, and fairly large–it serves 1,500 healthcare organizations and employs 3,500 people with revenue of $347 million. It IPO’d in 2002 as CPSI on Nasdaq, converting to TruBridge in 2024. IKS Health is HQ’d in Mumbai but has a US HQ in Texas. It has 13,350 employees and a global base of 600 clients. It’s public on the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) and BSE Limited (BSE). In addition to RCM, it offers care coordination, risk and optimization, and utilization management tools for value-based care. Digital Health News (India)

Also in RCM, TELCOR is buying Sample Healthcare. Amount and transitions are undisclosed. Like TruBridge, TELCOR started in the late 1990s. It serves both hospital and independent labs’ RCM for billing plus point-of-care and laboratory data. It has a 57% market share in the US for point-of-care solutions and serves over 2,700 hospitals and laboratories. Sample will add an AI-driven workflow engine that will be marketed as a separate product. It received seed funding out of Y Combinator in 2024. It’s easy to determine that Sample is a tuck-in acquisition for TELCOR.  TELCOR release.

The wrapup line on ViVE

February 22, 2025 | by

Digital health conference ViVE 2025 in Nashville wrapped on Wednesday–and surprisingly, there weren’t any bombshells. The well-attended Sunday-Wednesday conference in the Music City was abbreviated due to…snow. Even though the snow came in at a less-than-forecast 1.5 inches, many participants, concerned about flights, headed for home.

Observations from an (anonymous) attendee on HIStalk (News 2/19/25 and 2/21/25) were generally positive. He or she reported a filled conference, show floor, and meeting spaces at the Nashville Convention Center and much more. Highlights:

  • 10,000 attendees–2,500 more than ViVE 2023 in Nashville, and 2,000 more than 2024 in Los Angeles. 30% were C–level from 725 provider and payer organizations represented. Tuesday was the busiest day but only 2,000 remained on Wednesday due to the snow report.
  • The real action took place in 1:1 and group meetings, most pre-scheduled–over 5,000 were booked in ViVE’s meeting spaces and “cubes”. The Provider and Payer Connect Lounge was much larger with at least 170 small tables for meetings with vendors. Unsurprisingly, the Investor Connect Lounge was smaller. The impression this person had was that there were fewer investors attending this year.
  • The show floor had a lot of activity and was nearly filled. Effectively every vendor pitched their AI capabilities. By the last day, usually the lightest anyway but with the snow, one-third were unattended or packed up. 
  • Sparsely attended and in smaller spaces: the four primary presentation stages.

ViVE has become a place to meet, talk, initiate/advance the buyer journey, and move towards a ‘deal deal’. It’s also for scoping out the competition. Presentations and panels have become beside the point.

A third article in HIStalk’s Readers Write were additional reflections from Mike Silverstein, a managing partner at DRI (Direct Recruiter Inc.), recruiting in the health IT and life sciences area. AI tools “are really getting smart, borderline scary smart”–especially AI agents being trained on “serious healthcare data and workflows”. Vendors are layering their workflows on top of off-the-shelf AI agents and the speed to market is “blinding”. Investment is up too with less ‘hand to mouth.’

Announcements, heavy on the AI, made during ViVE and recapped in MedCity News: 

  • Data analytics firm MultiPlan rebranded as Claritev. The company provides payments and pricing solutions based on healthcare claims data. It will start trading on the NYSE under CTEV next Friday 28 February. Release
  • Abridge announced their $250 million Series D [TTA 21 Feb]
  • Automation platform developer Innovaccer announced seven new AI agents. These ‘agents of care’ automate administrative  tasks in scheduling, protocol intake, referrals, prior authorizations, care gap, HCC, and patient access. The agents are designed to support multiple care teams, including clinicians, care managers, risk coders, patient navigators, and call center agents. Release
  • Lumeris launched an AI tool, Tom, that automates tasks like care coordination, chronic disease management and patient outreach in clinical workflows for primary care providers. Release
  • UPMC Enterprises soft-launched a virtual environment, Ahavi, for developers to test and evaluate the efficacy of AI models against UPMC’s patient population data. UPMC Enterprises is the innovation and commercialization arm of the UPMC health system. More on this from HealthPoint and FierceHealthcare.
  • IKS Health launched a generative AI scribe, Scribble Now. It automates notes during the patient visit via automated speech recognition (ASR) and generative AI (GenAI). Release
  • Healthcare operations software developer Symplyr launched the Symplr Operations Platform (SOP). It unifies separate solutions onto a AWS cloud-based infrastructure to unify disparate solutions. Release

Week-end short takes: payer earnings for Centene, Cigna, Humana; Centene and Walmart partner in FL; Dispatch Health and US Acute Care partner; Amwell widens loss; ProMedica $710M home health sale; AQuity’s $200M sale to IKS Health (updated)

November 2, 2023 | by

On the payer side, buyers of telehealth are trying maintain course:

Challenged Centene beat Wall Street estimates, but clouds loom. For Q3 they reported $38 billion in revenue, but year-over-year profit of $469 million was down 36%. 2014 forecast earnings were already downgraded. Centene is heavily dependent, as some other payers are, on state Medicaid. New Federal guidelines are ending the automatic eligibility redeterminations that took effect during the Covid pandemic. 2024 redeterminations may take millions more off the rolls, though many requalify. The payer contracts with 31 states to offer Medicaid coverage and has lost 1.1 million Medicaid members over redeterminations to date. Their Medicare Advantage (MA) plans were also hit in 2023 with low Star ratings, which reduce desirability and payment status with CMS, but recovered for 2024 with 87% over 3 stars (the minimum) compared to 53%. Layoffs also have bitten into Centene with a known layoff of 2,000 this summer, plus another unannounced layoff terminating staff in December, according to this Editor’s source. Healthcare Dive  Update: Centene is terminating 2,000, or about 3% of workforce, with an end date of 8 December. Becker’s Payer

Cigna also beat Wall Street estimates in a generally upbeat forecast. For Q3, they reported revenue of $49 billion, up 8% year over year. Net income was down 50% to $1.4 billion but understandably as Cigna sold businesses in six countries. Membership are up 9% year over year to $19.6 billion, mostly due to commercial membership. Cigna has little exposure to ACA business, but that grew as well and margins are improving. Healthcare Dive 

Humana saw increased Q3 utilization in its MA plans plus increased Covid hospitalization. This helped to drive its medical loss ratio (MLR) up for 2023. While beating the Street on revenue of $26.4 billion and profit of $1.1 billion and with projected MA growth MA of 19%, or about 860,000 members plus 2024 of 45,000, shares went a bit wobbly. In Star ratings, they did well and maintained a 4.5 Star (out of 5) in its largest contract with 40% of its MA members while the second largest contract improved from 4.5 to 5 stars. Healthcare Dive

A brighter spot for Centene is a partnership with Walmart in Florida on ACA plans. Ambetter from Sunshine Health in Florida is adding Walmart Health Centers to its preferred provider network. This will cover seven counties and focus on care coordination and referral management. Walmart is also working with Orlando Health, a private, not-for-profit network of community and specialty hospitals across Florida, to improve care coordination in the Orlando area initially. Walmart release, Becker’s

In partnerships, Dispatch Health announced today (2 Nov) that will be working with US Acute Care Solutions (USACS) to offer additional support for patients after a hospital stay or when they need hospital-to-home alternative care. Dispatch Health offers same-day, urgent medical care; hospital alternative care; and recovery care. USACS is owned by its physicians and hospital system partners for integrated acute care, including emergency medicine, hospitalist, and critical care services. Dispatch Health release

Back to Big Telehealth, Amwell didn’t have a good quarter. Their net loss of $137.1 million was up 94% year-over-year. This quarter included $78.9 million in impairment charges linked to sustained decreases in its share price and market capitalization. So far in 2023, these impairments have totaled $436.5 million. Another hit was that revenue declined 11% year over year to $61.9 million. Amwell is working to complete the transition of its customers to Converge. On the positive but very long term side, Amwell is partnering with the Leidos Partnership for Defense Health (LPDH) with the US Defense Health Agency as part of the Digital First initiative for the Military Health System (MHS). This will replace the MHS Video Connect system with Amwell Converge, a “comprehensive hybrid care enablement platform designed to power the full continuum of care using digital, virtual, and automated modalities”, and link to MHS GENESIS, the Oracle Cerner EHR. The contract may be worth up to $180 million over 22 months in a prolonged rollout. Healthcare Dive, Amwell release

In sale news, some big numbers are posting:

Ohio-based 12-hospital system ProMedica is selling its home health, palliative and hospice business to Atlanta-based Gentiva Health Services for a tidy $710 million. Gentiva is the largest hospice care company in the US. 4,000 employees will be transitioning. The hospice operations will go under the Heartland Hospice brand by the end of 2023, with home health also joining Heartland Home Health and the palliative care business under Empatia Palliative Care brand between the end of this year and 2024. Becker’s

AQuity selling to IKS Health for $200 million. The sale will add AQuity’s medical-coding, clinical-documentation and revenue-support capabilities to IKS’ technology-backed care enablement platform. This creates a $330 million company with a 14,000 person workforce that includes 1,500 clinicians, 350 medical coders, technology experts, clinical documentation specialists, and revenue integrity specialists. Another example of a larger trend in companies acquiring specific companies to build out their platforms and become more ‘one-stop shopping’, a more attractive proposition at least for now to VCs. Mobihealthnews. More discussion on why VCs are no longer hot on niche or point solutions in MedCityNews.