Mid-week roundup: DEA extends telehealth prescribing waiver to November; telehealth usage continues to erode; NextGen EHR hacked, 1M records breached

May 11, 2023 | by

The answer: 11 November. The question: how long was the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) planning to extend their telehealth waiver of in-person prescribing requirements on Schedule II and higher controlled substances?  Both the DEA and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued the “Temporary Extension of COVID-19 Telemedicine Flexibilities for Prescription of Controlled Medications”rule on 9 May before the Public Health Emergency (PHE) expired on 11 May. It’s a six-month reprieve for the beleaguered telemental health providers/prescribers and their patients–and sure to be hotly debated over the next few months as a final rule must replace the temporary extension rule and the Ryan-Haight Act isn’t going away. DEA release, TTA 4 May

FAIR Health’s tracking of telehealth medical claims has languished in the Fives–as in 5%–since last year. February is the latest month of tracking and it declined from 5.9% in January to 5.5% in February. Again, the vast majority of claims are for mental health codes (66.7%) far ahead of diagnosis #2, acute respiratory diseases and infections, where Covid-19 once resided. However, the latter accounted for 25.6% of asynchronous (store and forward) telehealth diagnoses. A new metric on the report is audio-only telehealth, which is only slightly more popular in rural versus urban areas. The greatest difference from the national norm is in the West, where February telehealth claims were 7.6%. Monthly national summary, FAIR Health main page for monthly and regional summaries.

NextGen’s EHR/practice management system hacked, 1.05 million patient records breached. Information stolen included patient name, dates of birth, addresses, and Social Security numbers. This was revealed in a filing with the Maine attorney general’s office since it included over 4,000 Maine residents. The hack of the NextGen Office system took place between 29 March and 14 April 2023. It’s been a bad year for NextGen’s IT and security teams, as it also experienced a short-term ransomware attack in January by AlphV/BlackCat. (The two couldn’t be related…could they?) No word yet on class action lawsuits or Federal penalties.  TechCrunch

EHR action: Allscripts acquires Practice Fusion, expands footprint in small/ambulatory practices

January 9, 2018 | by

A significant EHR acquisition kicks off an action-packed week. Announced today by leading EHR Allscripts is their acquisition for $100 million of independent practice EHR Practice Fusion. Allscripts, which has been usually in the top five US EHRs (Kalorama April 2017 survey), vastly expanded its hospital market share with August’s acquisition of #2 McKesson‘s health IT business and with this would be ranked just behind EHR leader Cerner. In acute care settings, Epic and Cerner dominate with 25 percent of the market each with Allscripts/McKesson far behind #3 Meditech (KLAS April 2017). 

Practice Fusion, one of the pioneers in the small practice/ambulatory EHR starting with a basic free, ad-paid model in 2005, has 30,000 ambulatory sites serving about 5 million patients each month. In the Allscripts view, they will now be able to offer “last mile” reach to the under-served clinicians in small and individual practices” and close gaps in care. Allscripts President Rick Poulton noted in the statement that “We believe this transaction will directly benefit Practice Fusion clients, who will now have access to Allscripts solutions and services. We look forward to welcoming Practice Fusion team members to our family.” which leads one to believe that the Practice Fusion name will be sunsetted. Allscripts release and Healthcare IT News

From being the leader in small practice EHRs, Practice Fusion found the last few years difficult as competition expanded into their segment, from eClinical Works, drchrono, athenahealth, and NextGen to small practice packages from Epic and Cerner.

It should be noted that Practice Fusion in 12 years went through 13 funding rounds, raising almost $158 million from a long list of VC luminaries such as Kleiner Perkins, Artis Ventures, Founders Fund, and Qualcomm Ventures (Crunchbase). However, it disappointed its investors and Wall Street, which expected two years ago a $1.5 billion IPO. The $100 million from Allscripts is all cash and the price is “subject to adjustment for working capital and net debt”–an exit which was surely not the sugarplum in the eyes of its 2014 and prior  investors. CNBC