Short takes: Fabric buys Walmart’s MeMD telehealth arm, Geisinger data breach via vendor exposed ~1.2M records, UK’s Careium develops resilient rSIM, $50M funding for K Health, India’s Alyve’s $6M Series A, Upside Health closes

July 2, 2024 | by

Walmart Health’s virtual care telehealth services, originally known as MeMD, sold to care enablement/workflow integrator Fabric. The transaction is effective immediately though no purchase price, management transition, or change in website were disclosed. The sale is no surprise as Walmart Health in shutting their clinics starting at end of May depicted the shutdown as total, lambasting low reimbursement and the cost of business as factoring into an unsustainable model. Fabric, based in NYC, uses conversational AI to triage patients, evaluate with decision support, and optimize resource allocation and patient flow.

Fabric claims that MeMD has 30,000 corporate, institutional, and health plan partners and 5 million members, Walmart bought it for an undisclosed amount in May 2021 during the telehealth boom. It expanded to include not only urgent care, but men’s and women’s health issue support, mental health and psychiatric support. Fabric’s funding since their founding in 2021 as Florence Labs is $80 million, the most recent a February Series A round of $60 million with General Catalyst, Thrive Capital, GV (Google Ventures), and four others. They bought a telehealth Ur-company, Zipnosis, from then-Bright Health in May 2023 [TTA 24 May 2023] and GYANT, an AI-assisted enablement company, in January. Release, Mobihealthnews

Geisinger, the lead health system within Kaiser Permanente’s Risant Health, experienced a data breach that potentially exposed 1.2 million records. The former employee of Nuance Communications, an IT provider in clinical documentation, accessed records two days after his termination. Geisinger discovered the breach on 29 November 2023, Because of the ongoing investigation, patients were not notified until 24 June.

Breached information varies by patient, but it included names combined with one or more of the following: date of birth, address, admit and discharge or transfer code, medical record number, race, gender, phone number and facility name abbreviation. No claims or insurance information, credit card or bank account numbers, other financial information, or Social Security numbers were accessed.

The former Nuance employee has been arrested and is facing federal charges. Nuance had no comment. Release, Healthcare Dive

In an important development for the UK’s rapidly implementing digital switchover, now extended to January 2027, Careium has developed an ‘intelligent’ SIM card for devices. It partnered with CSL to develop a “resilient’ rSIM that actively monitors connectivity and will switch either profile for maximum uptime on all UK networks. rSIM is available for all Careium 4G products in the Eliza smartcare hub and is compatible with current devices. Careium is marketed and covers about 400,000 seniors in the UK, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, and France.  Release

Two fundings of note–and one shutdown:

K Health, a NYC-based digital primary care startup, received $50 million in venture round funding from lead investor Claure Group. Additional investors were Pablo Legorreta, founder and CEO of Royalty Pharma, Mangrove Capital Partners, Valor Equity Partners and Atreides Management LP. Total funding to date is over $380 million through a Series E plus two venture rounds. Valuation is estimated at $900 million. K Health supports users through an app with AI-assisted diagnostics as well as partnerships with leading health systems in 48 states including Cedars-Sinai and health plans Elevance and UnitedHealthCare. Conditions supported are primary care, weight management, urgent care, and mental health. Release, FierceHealthcare

Alyve Health, a Mumbai, India-based digital health provider, raised a Series A of $5,5 million. It was led by Axilor Ventures with participants 1Crowd Fund, InHealth Ventures, and Trifecta Capital. Alyve provides services to corporate markets to simplify the health plan experience for members across multiple healthcare experiences such as doctor consultations, diagnostics, medicine purchases, dental procedures, gym memberships, and proactive well-being. According to the release, the raise will be used to improve its data, security, and AI capabilities, as well as expand operations, hire more talent, and enhance services. Mobihealthnews

Pain management technology company Upside Health closed. Founder Rachel Trobman posted the closure on her personal feed on LinkedIn. Their Branch Health app helped chronic pain sufferers better manage their pain and connected them to clinical and educational resources. Their website and LinkedIn pages are shuttered. According to her post, they had a base of 30,000 patients. Their funding listed on Crunchbase was $635,000.

Disruption or giveaway: Amazon Care signs on employers, but who? Amazon Pharmacy’s 6 months of meds for $6. (updated)

June 16, 2021 | by

Is this disruption, a giveaway, or blue smoke requiring IFR? An Amazon Care VP, Babak Parviz, said at the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Health virtual event that all is well with their rollout of virtual primary care (VPC). Washington state is first, with VPC now available nationally to all Amazon employees as well as companies. However, Mr. Parviz did not disclose the signed-up companies, nor a timetable for when in-person Amazon Care practices will be expanding to Washington, DC, Baltimore, and other cities in the coming months.

Mr. Parviz also provided some details of what Amazon Care would ultimately look like:

  • Clinician chat/video connected within 60 seconds
  • If an in-person visit is required, a mobile clinician arrives within 60 minutes, who can perform some diagnostic tests, such as for strep throat, provide vaccinations and draw blood for lab work. For other diagnoses, that clinician is equipped with a kit with devices to monitor vital signs which are live-streamed to remote clinicians.
  • Medication delivery within 120 minutes

FierceHealthcare

The timing of the Amazon Care rollout has not changed since our coverage of their announcement in March. This Editor noted in that article that Credit Suisse in their overview was underwhelmed by Amazon Care as well as other efforts in the complex and crowded healthcare space. Amazon Care also doesn’t integrate with payers. It’s payment upfront, then the patient files a claim with their insurer.

Existing players are already established in large chunks of what Amazon wants to own.

  • Both Amwell’s Ido Schoenberg [TTA 2 April] and Teladoc’s Jason Gorevic (FierceHealthcare 12 May) have opined that they are way ahead of Amazon both in corporate affiliations and comprehensive solutions. Examples: Amwell’s recently announced upgrade of their clinician platform and adding platforms for in-home hospital-grade care [TTA 29 Apr], Teladoc’s moves into mental health with myStrength [TTA 14 May].
  • Even Walmart is getting into telehealth with their purchase of a small player, MeMD [TTA 8 May].
  • CVS has their MinuteClinics affiliated with leading local health systems, and Walgreens is building out 500 free-standing VillageMD locations [TTA 4 Dec 20]. CVS and Walgreens are also fully integrated with payers and pharmacy benefit management plans (PBM).

Another loss leader is pharmacy. Amazon is also offering to Prime members a pharmacy prescription savings benefit: six-month supplies of select medications for $6. The conditions are that members must pay out-of-pocket (no insurance), they must have the six-month prescription from their provider, and the medication must be both available and eligible on Amazon Pharmacy. Medications included are for high blood pressure, diabetes, and more. The timing is interesting as Walmart also announced a few days earlier a similar program for Walmart+ members. Mobihealthnews.

crystal-ballThis Editor’s opinion is that Amazon’s business plans for both entities and in healthcare are really about accumulating data, not user revenue, and are certainly not altruistic no matter what they say. Amazon will accumulate and own national healthcare data on Amazon Care and Pharmacy users far more valuable than whatever is spent on providing care and services. Amazon will not only use it internally for cross-selling, but can monetize the data to pharmaceutical companies, payers, developers, and other commercial third parties in and ex-US. Shouldn’t privacy advocates be concerned, as this isn’t being disclosed? 

Walmart Health moves into the hot telehealth area with MeMD buy

May 8, 2021 | by

Retail giant Walmart’s health arm, Walmart Health, has agreed to purchase privately held telehealth provider MeMD. MeMD provides telehealth services in primary care, urgent care, women’s/men’s health, and mental health services to both individuals and organizations for their employees. Neither purchase price nor executive leadership transitions were disclosed. The transaction, which requires regulatory approval, is expected to close in the next few months.

The relatively low profile MeMD was founded in 2010 by ER physician and entrepreneur John Shufeldt, MD. The company is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, and offers national coverage for its five million members.

A big move that indicates a strategic wobbliness? Walmart Health’s strategy has been a roller coaster over the past few years. Aggressively starting out of the gate in 2018 with high-profile exec Sean Slovenski leading and plans to open up 1,000 clinics, they retrenched in 2020 with his departure and slowed down the opening of Walmart Health locations. Virtual visits, which are merchandisable in-store and online, signal a different direction that may be easier to scale than brick-and-mortar locations, and have proven their market. Meanwhile, back at the stores, last month Walmart announced a partnership with Ro to put its trendy Roman men’s sexual health and vitamin product lines into 4,600+ Walmart stores starting 1 May. RetailBrew 

Looming in the background, of course, is CVS with their MinuteClinics, Walgreens with 500 free-standing VillageMD locations [TTA 4 Dec 20], and Amazon rolling out Amazon Care nationally. Walmart’s employees have used Doctor on Demand’s services, with the company dropping the visit cost to $4 during the pandemic. With the Grand Rounds merger [TTA 18 Mar], this may have been another reason for Walmart to bring in-house a telehealth provider. Who may be feeling the most heat from Walmart’s and Amazon’s moves? Teladoc and Amwell. Walmart release, Becker’s Hospital Review, Engadget