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

Mid-week roundup: Cotiviti’s $10.5B stake to KKR; Cigna buys back $3.2B shares; VA Oracle Cerner faulty med records; LockBit ransomware websites cold-busted at every level, principals indicted; Trualta partners with PointClickCare

February 22, 2024 | by

Investor KKR announced their buy of a $10.5 billion stake in healthcare analytics Cotiviti. The stake comes from Veritas Capital, creating an equal share of ownership. The recapitalization will be used for commercial expansion, new product development, and technology-related opportunities. It is expected to close subject to regulatory approvals in Q2 this year. According to Axios and Bloomberg, it is financed by a $5 billion leveraged loan sale launched last week, with a $4.4 billion floating rate term loan led by JPM and a $600 million fixed rate term loan led by Goldman Sachs. This is Veritas’ second attempt to exit. While money is leaking back into private equity deals, the new trend is to finance them with more cash than debt. Cotiviti release

Cigna, having sold off its Medicare Advantage plans for $3.7 million to HCSC, is repurchasing $3.2 billion in stock (7.6 million shares) through agreements with Deutsche Bank and Bank of America. Cigna’s plan remains to repurchase $5 billion of common stock over H1 2024 after ending merger talks with Humana. FierceHealthcare, Cigna release

VA warned about faulty medication records in the Oracle Cerner Millenium EHR. The culprit is in the Health Data Repository, according to a government watchdog. David Case, deputy inspector general for the VA, reported at a House Veterans Affairs Committee Technology Modernization Subcommittee meeting last week, that while VA had no reports of harmful drug interactions, Case had at least one instance of a veteran not given a critical medication for adrenal insufficiency, leading to a near-disastrous outcome. The VA has also not informed the 250,000 veterans with prescription records in the Oracle Cerner system that the records may have errors.. In the VA facilities that have Oracle Cerner, providers, pharmacists, and frontline staff must perform complex manual medication safety checks to replace automated checks.

The Oracle Cerner rollout has been put on hold till summer this year–maybe [TTA 1 Nov 23]. At this hearing, Mike Sicilia of Oracle did show up and attributed the problems in the HDR to multiple systems being involved from VistA and other EHRs, into Oracle Cerner. However, after 10 separate fixes, the most recent software update had a similar data issue during final testing and was quickly pulled. Military.com

A victory versus ransomware. Updated. The LockBit ransomware group has been cold-busted “at every level” by the UK, US, and international law enforcement. According to the Department of Justice release and other sources, the UK’s National Crime Agency’s (NCA) Cyber Division led Operation Cronos, working in cooperation with the Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other law enforcement agencies worldwide. They seized numerous public-facing websites and domains used by LockBit to connect to the organization’s infrastructure along with servers used by LockBit administrators. Russian nationals Artur Sungatov and Ivan Kondratyev, also known as Bassterlord, were indicted in the US District Court of New Jersey in Newark, charged with deploying LockBit against numerous victims throughout the United States. Sungatov was also indicted in the Northern District of California. According to Europol, “Two LockBit actors have been arrested in Poland and Ukraine at the request of the French judicial authorities. The French and US judicial authorities have also issued three international arrest warrants and five indictments.” LockBit’s ‘heart’ is of course in Russia, where nearly all cybercrime is located–they are free to operate there as long as they don’t target anything in RU. Cybernews

Trualta partners with PointClickCare for family caregiver education and support. PointClickCare is a leading EHR for long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) providers. Trualta provides educational resources to support family caregivers when a patient is discharged through logging in to the resource site, with the ability to access articles, videos, and modules that cover a variety of care topics including preparing for discharge, transitioning from hospital to home, and life after discharge.  Trualta’s information will be offered through PointClickCare’s Marketplace. A recent study by Trualta of caregivers using their materials found that 30 days of Trualta use can decrease annual unexpected hospital visits among care recipients by 20%. Trualta release

Mid-week roundup: TytoCare’s Wheeze Detection clears FDA, OpenLoop telehealth’s $15M Series A, PointClickCare buys PatientPattern EHR, last info session for Health Wildcatters’ 2023 accelerator

March 16, 2023 | by

TytoCare receives FDA clearance for its lung sound monitoring algorithm. Wheeze Detection, which analyzes lung sound data for adults and children aged two and above, will be added to Tyto Insights for the remote diagnosis of developing lung conditions. The AI algorithm in Tyto’s decision support software analyzes their database of lung sounds against the patient’s, recorded by TytoCare’s stethoscope device, to determine if wheezing or other abnormal sounds are detected. Wheeze Detection was previously CE-marked for Europe. It’s an important addition as respiratory conditions account for 40% of their diagnoses over time through the TytoCare home-based telehealth + device diagnostic kit. Tyto Insights is part of TytoCare’s Home Smart Clinic, released last November, for at-home remote care targeted to providers and health plans. It includes Tyto Engagement Labs configured for each specific program and cohort that delivers on expected ROI and improved health outcomes. Tyto release

A substantial Series A round to OpenLoop. OpenLoop is a turnkey white-label telehealth with staff platform that targets two interesting segments: providers and digital health companies. Their $15 million Series A was led by Nava Ventures, with participation from new investors UnityPoint Health Ventures and PrimeTime Ventures, and existing investors SpringTide Ventures and ManchesterStory, adding to their existing $25 million in funding. Their network has 6,000+ certified clinicians across all 50 states, offers 30+ digital health specialties, and has capabilities in 15 languages. Also announced was the addition of a nationwide insurance payer network that allows clients to offer reimbursable services to patients instead of cash pay-only options, plus a payer coverage and revenue cycle management (RCM) service. Release

Senior/home care coordination platform PointClickCare acquires EHR Patient Pattern. Patient Pattern adds to PointClickCare’s position with long‐term and post‐acute care providers as well as with other high-needs populations with its EHR and care management platform that serves Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plans, ACO REACH participants, and PACE programs. Terms, timing, and management transitions were not disclosed. Release

And down in Dallas, Health Wildcatters is rounding up the dogies for its 2023 Accelerator. Their last info session on the application process is on 4 April from 2-3pm CDT. Their Accelerator is a three-month program, September-November, that includes only 8 to 12 startups. There’s intensive training, introductions to their 200-strong mentor and investor network (hopefully none from SVB or Signature Bank!), plus investment from Health Wildcatters. More information on the Accelerator here, registration for the application info session here, and 2023 application here. Final applications are due by 31 May.

Q1 digital health investment: two perspectives from StartUp Health and Rock Health

April 11, 2017 | by

StartUp Health’s and Rock Health’s investment/M&A roundups from Q1 2017 have just hit the deck. Before we dig into them, let’s start with the differences in methodology:

  • Rock Health tracks deals only over $2 million in value; StartUp Health seems to have no minimum or maximum; the latter includes early stage deals at a lower value.
  • StartUp Health gathers in international deals at all levels, whereas Rock Health includes only US-funded ventures.
  • Rock Health omits healthcare services companies (citing Forward, Oscar), biotech/diagnostic companies (GRAIL, Theranos), and software companies not solely focused on healthcare (Zenefits)
  • StartUp Health defines ‘digital health’ differently than Rock Health, with categories of ‘patient/consumer experience’, ‘wellness’, ‘personalized health/quantified self’, and ‘research’

StartUp Health is ‘over the moon’, breathlessly (appropriately as the home of the 25-year Health Moonshot) with Q1 trending, seeing the biggest investment quarter since 2010 at $2.5 bn. Topping up this number was GRAIL, which is developing a blood test for early cancer detection, with a massive Series B at $914 million. Far behind it in the $85-110 million range were (in descending order) Alignment Healthcare (population health), PatientsLikeMe (patient/consumer experience), Nuna (big data/analytics), and PointClickCare (EHR). Population health, patient/consumer experience, and research top their investment activity. Most deals are still seed and Series A (59 percent), but that is down five points from full year 2016; Series B’s share is up three points to 25 percent. But it remains a difficult bridge to cross to C+ rounds.

Rock Health splits the difference and calls it ‘business as usual’, surprised that there hasn’t been a tailspin. Its Q1 sandwiches between 2016 and 2015, well above 2015 but trending 23 percent below Q1 2016. Their biggest deals include the aforementioned Alignment, PatientsLikeMe and Nuna, omitting GRAIL and PointClickCare. Their top three investment categories are analytics/big data, care coordination, and telemedicine (over $50 million). Rock Health tracked almost 20 M&A, noting that many transactions are now ex-California. They also uniquely track public company performance. Here in 2016 is where Readers first noted weakness in NantHealth, but Fitbit and Castlight Health also had miserable quarters. Teladoc, Evolent Health (consulting), and Care.com had a good winter as well. Let’s see what Q2 brings.