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

Scary Monsters, Take 4: further investor thoughts on CVS-Aetna, the Amazon Threat–and Aetna’s skeleton in the closet? (updated)

February 13, 2018 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/canary-in-the-coal-mine.jpgw595.jpeg” thumb_width=”150″ /]This Editor is always interested in Following the Money as a way to cut through the Fog of Hype and Headlines. The proposed CVS-Aetna merger is no exception. This recent article in Seeking Alpha is a must-read despite its click-bait headline because it not only looks at CVS-Aetna (a thumbs up generally) but also dissects the ‘Amazon Threat‘ and finds that like Oakland, there is (not much) there, there. Let’s look at the writer’s POV–who represents an investor group with no position:

  • CVS is in retail. Amazon is in retail. But CVS’ difference is that by and large, their retail is not a ‘destination’ (only 25 percent of their retail revenue) but a stop-off while a prescription is filled or there’s a visit to the MinuteClinic. I’d differ with this as many of their stores are semi-convenience stores and, at least in this New York metro area, located away from both traditional supermarkets and convenience stores. Some of us also don’t like to pay shipping on a few necessities, want the items now, prefer to pay cash, or coupon-clip. (And I just remembered I need a quart of milk, saving me a trip to the market….)
  • Amazon has exhibited some hesitancy in entering the pharmacy area. They won’t use their licenses to sell prescription drugs (CNBC, Nov) and canceled a wholesaler application in Maine. In the writer’s estimation, the threat to traditional PBM and prescription drugs is exaggerated because “For some reason, the market has been temporarily duped into thinking that a non-existent company with zero customers and zero experience is a real threat to a $70 Billion behemoth that has been at the top of its field for over 50 years.” Pharmacy is also heavily mail order for recurrent prescriptions or needed immediately, not suitable for the Amazon model unless they develop a true PBM and retail delivery. That isn’t to say that Amazon will never be a threat–just not right away. And what will happen before that is…
  • Through a merger with Aetna, CVS is demonstrating to shareholders that they are willing to diversify revenue and profit streams by adding over $60 billion in insurance business. An integration with Aetna (and providers) will help the profitable MinuteClinics grow and thrive, perhaps in non-traditional ways (e.g. anchoring malls).

Again, Amazon needs to enter profitable businesses (see our Follow the Money article) and create shareholder value, even at a $500bn valuation.

What may be a skeleton in Aetna’s closet is prior authorization procedures. Possibly spoiling a rosy CVS-Aetna merger picture is an investigation by the California insurance commissioner into Aetna’s prior authorization practices. It’s a result of a lawsuit in California Superior Court by a patient denied coverage for an intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatment. A former Aetna medical director admitted under oath in the case that he never looked at patients’ case files before denying authorization, accepting Aetna’s procedure of nurses making recommendations. This will not only affect Aetna, but also any payer doing business in California. Aetna claims that the plaintiff didn’t have necessary blood testing done prior to the authorization review and in fact avoided having it done. A decision here will be watched closely by every doctor who slaves on prior authorizations. With the CNN exclusive, expect many headlines and scrutiny with the spotlight on Aetna. Hat tip to Reader Howard Green, MD, via LinkedIn.

Updated. Colorado’s Division of Insurance is reviewing this information to see if it violates Colorado laws concerning patients’ right to appeal and review procedures that meet standards of care for the state. Expect more states to follow.  Healthcare Dive  

But will this slow or stop the merger? Likely not, but roll ‘dem bones. Lawyers surveyed by the National Law Journal say probably not, as past conduct is usually known by the merging party and factored in. However, this merger must be approved by 50 states’ insurance departments (and more). The caveat is that they use a ‘public interest’ standard that is broader than the Federal anti-trust or fair trade regulations. Look for states to extract concessions before this merger is done.