Insurtechs in the widening gyre: Bright Health sued for claims non-payment, fined $1M by Colorado; Clover Health lays off 10%, outsources operations

April 20, 2023 | by

When the centre cannot hold, more revelations are at hand.

Bright Health, facing insolvency and a violation of a liquidity covenant by the end of this month, is now facing a lawsuit by health system SSM Health in the US District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. At issue: payment of $13.1 million for 2,541 unpaid claims incurred for services SSM provided to Bright Health members between 1 January 2020 and 7 February 2023. This three-year plus timespan is not a simple glitch. SSM alleges in the suit that it provided $15.6 million worth of services in total to Bright Health plan members across facilities in three regions. In Oklahoma, SSM Health’s base, Bright exited Oklahoma’s Affordable Care Act exchange in December 2022 while under investigation by regulators. SSM has no contract with Bright to discount services in return for access to Bright’s network so charges the ‘rack rate’. The lawsuit docket is listed here though PACER is restricted access. FierceHealthcare

Bright Health is also under serious challenge at the state level. It was fined $1 million by the Colorado Division of Insurance (DOI) for violations during 2021-22. According to the DOI release, the complaints and violations centered on four areas: 1) failure to pay provider claims according to Colorado law; 2) failure to communicate with their members; 3) inability to accurately process consumer payments and accounts; 4) untimely processing of claims for physical and behavioral health coverage. $500,000 must be paid now, with the remainder held for specific improvement and compliance with metrics. Department of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) release  Bright is also under investigation in Tennessee, Texas, and Florida; it is under regulatory supervision in Florida and Tennessee with Texas considering receivership. Bright Health shares today closed at $0.164 and is on the verge of being delisted from the NYSE. Our recent coverage here.

New Jersey’s Clover Health, while not near the extremis that Bright is in, is cutting and outsourcing its way to profitability. Announced on Monday was a ‘corporate restructuring’ cut of 10% or 66 employees, based on public estimates of 656 (Pitchbook). Simultaneously, Clover’s CEO, Andrew Toy, announced outsourcing of core Medicare Advantage health plan operations to UST HealthProof in a move to increase operational efficiencies and reduce administrative costs. Both the layoffs and the UST implementation are expected to incur a 2023 first-half charge of $7-9 million, shifting to a $30 million savings beginning in 2024. Both moves were predictable as the company posted an $84 million loss in Q4 2022, a slight narrowing over prior year. Clover release, FierceHealthcare    Clover shares on Nasdaq were also below the delisting threshold at $0.80. Also industry analyst Ari Gottlieb on its overdue-ness on LinkedIn.

What’s up with Amazon in healthcare? Follow the money. (updated)

January 23, 2018 | by

Updated–click to see full page. Amazon is the Scary Monster of the healthcare space, a veritable Godzilla unleashed in Tokyo, if one listens to the many rumors, placed and otherwise, picked up in mainstream media which then are seized on by our healthcare compatriots.

According to CNBC’s breathless reporting, they have set up a skunk works HQ’d in Seattle. When they posted job listings, they were under keyword “a1.492” or as “The Amazon Grand Challenge a.k.a. ‘Special Projects’ team.” In late July, these ads for people like a UX Design Manager and a machine learning director with experience in healthcare IT and analytics plus a knowledge of electronic medical records were deleted. Amazon has separate initiatives on selling pharmaceuticals and building health applications to be compatible with Echo/Alexa and other smart home tech. Both have come up in the context of the CVS-Aetna merger, where buying up state pharmacy licenses cannot be kept secret (see end of our 8 Dec article) and that efforts to extend Alexa and Echo’s capabilities aren’t particularly secret.

A quick look at Bezos Expeditions, Amazon supremo’s Jeff Bezos’ personal fund, on Crunchbase reveals several healthcare investments, such as GRAIL (cancer), Unity Biotechnology (aging), Rethink Robotics, and Juno Therapeutics (cancer). Not really things easy to sell on Amazon.

Last week, Amazon reportedly hired Dr. Martin Levine, who ran integrated primary health Iora Health’s Seattle-based clinics, according to CNBC and Becker’s. They met with Iora, Kaiser, and the now-defunct Qliance about a year ago on innovative healthcare models. More breathless reporting: they are hiring a “HIPAA compliance lead.” 

What does this all mean? It may be more–or less–than what the speculation is. Here’s what this Editor believes as some options:

  • Alexa and Echo are data collectors as well as assistants–information that has monetary value to healthcare providers and pharma. To this Editor, this is the most likely and soonest option–the monetization of this data and the delivery of third-party services as well as monitoring.
  • Amazon now employs a lot of people. It is large enough to create its own self-funded health system. It’s already had major problems in the UK, Italy, and even in the US with healthcare and working conditions in its warehouses. Whole Foods’ non-union workers are prime for unionization since the acquisition (and also if, as rumored, robots and automation start replacing people).
  • A self-funded health system may also be plausible to sell  (more…)