Wednesday news roundup: March telehealth claims down to 4.6%, state telehealth waivers expiring, UnitedHealth’s Optum bids for EMIS, Talkspace reportedly rejected Amwell, Mindpath bids

Telehealth usage continuing its downward trend. At 4.6%, telehealth medical claims in March were off over 6% (0.3 points) versus February’s 4.9%. Again, 65% of claims were for mental health conditions, and social workers were the leading providers of telehealth at 32% for primarily one hour of psychotherapy at 26%. FAIR Health monthly US tracker.

One possible contributing factor is states pulling back on the broad telehealth provider location and other waivers (such as platforms) that were enacted during the Covid emergency. These waivers primarily permitted out-of-state providers. The expiration of waivers thus return telehealth delivery to in-state licensed providers unless covered by other regulations, for instance Medicaid. Last year, 26 states waived in-state licensure requirements; this year, only 12 states have these waivers. California and New Jersey are due to expire soon.  NBC News with a hat tip to HISTalk.

Optum bids to buy UK health software provider EMIS. The bid of £1.24 billion ($1.5 billion) was announced last Friday. A UK affiliate of Optum, Bordeaux UK Holdings II Limited, is the actual entity for the acquisition, recommended by the EMIS board. The offer is in cash and represents a 49% premium to the current share price. EMIS is a leading provider of software and systems to the NHS, serving primary care, community care and pharmacy, acute care, and the Patient.info website. When completed, EMIS would be UnitedHealth’s largest acquisition in the UK and Europe. FierceHealthcare 

Troubled telementalhealth provider Talkspace reportedly rejected a bid from Amwell pretty much out of hand, leading to speculation that it’s up for sale but being picky-picky-picky.  According to the report in Behavioral Health Business, from Seeking Alpha, their talks did not even reach number discussions. This is after Talkspace rejected another bid in May from another telementalhealth provider Mindpath, backed by Centerbridge Partners and Leonard Green & Partners. Sources were split on whether $500 million was offered or not (Axios).

Talkspace is one of the poster children for Cracking SPACs. It hit the market in January 2021 at a valuation of $1.4 billion, opening above $8, hitting a peak of about $11 per share. Share price declined to as low as $1.06 before rising on this acquisition talk to $1.58. Current valuation is $58 million, but it is sitting on a reported $184 million in cash. Reportedly their CEO search is going nowhere. Much like Teladoc, one year after their SPAC, investor lawsuits were filed against the company for misleading investors. Look for Talkspace to be sold over the summer.