Deal and news roundup: Humana closes $5.7B Kindred at Home buy, Unite Us SDOH buys Carrot Health for data, Carrot Fertility raises $75M, Maven Clinic at $1B value, Privia partners with Babyscripts for moms, Tyto Care and Prisma Health

August 20, 2021 | by

Home care continues to rock with the third move in two weeks. Payer giant Humana closed its acquisition of home care giant Kindred at Home, completing the acquisition of the approximately 60% Humana did not already own for $5.7 billion. Kindred provides home health, hospice, and personal care services to over 550,000 patients annually, making it the largest US home health company. Humana will integrate Kindred into their Home Solutions business, sunsetting the Kindred name for CenterWell Home Health starting in 2022. CenterWell is payer-agnostic, which is a fancy way of saying that they sell to other payers. An interesting nugget in the release is that Home Solutions has an interim president, Greg Sheff. FierceHealthcare

While planned since earlier this year, the shakeup in the sleepy home health segment in usually dozy August has been substantial, and at premium prices. Honor’s acquired Home Instead [TTA 14 Aug] with a valuation of $2.1 billion and the Sharecare conglomerate bought CareLinx for $65 million [TTA 19 Aug].  

In another hot area, social determinants of health (SDOH), NYC-based care coordination platform Unite Us acquired Carrot Health for an undisclosed sum. Carrot Health is a consumer data and health data set that powers over 500 proprietary predictive models. Carrot’s team will be absorbed into the Unite Us current structure. Both products will be sold together and separately as Unite Us positions the company as the only national company to integrate health and social care. Back in March, Unite Us closed a $150 million Series C. This follows on the Wellsky acquisition of SDOH provider Healthify earlier this month to bolster its community care platform [TTA 4 Aug]. Release, FierceHealthcare, Mobihealthnews

Women’s and family health gaining popularity and funding. Another Carrot, Carrot Fertility, raised a $75 million Series C funding, led by the deep-pocketed Tiger Global Management. Their current funding totals $115 million. Carrot Fertility, based in San Francisco, provides fertility benefits for generous companies like Peloton, Box, Slack, and Eventbrite in more than 55 countries. FierceHealthcare

And while we are on women’s health, Maven Clinic, a women and family health-oriented digital health provider, reached unicorn ($1 billion) valuation status with a $110 million Series D fund raise led by a female partner at Lux Capital with backing from Oprah Winfrey. Maven pitches itself to employers and health plans as a virtual clinic for women’s and family health, offering care and support for fertility, pregnancy, and parenting. This Editor looks forward to the day where specialized women’s and family health services are part of routine care, and news about a provider wouldn’t need this type of spin to get noticed. (It’s like US car companies in the 1950s bringing in women designers to make cars that appealed especially to women. Buick and Jordan figured that out in the 1920s.)  FierceHealthcare, TechCrunch, plus a loquacious blog post from founder Kate Ryder

And speaking of babies, Privia Health, one of the larger management services organizations (MSOs) for physician practices, is partnering with virtual maternity care Babyscripts for pregnancy and post-partum care. The Babyscripts services will be integrated into Privia’s Women’s Health provider group. DC-based Babyscripts is small with only about $20 million in funding through Series B (Crunchbase) but addresses the big problems of maternal and post-pregnancy mother and baby care, including maternal deaths. Privia providers will be able to access Babyscripts’ remote patient monitoring for mental health, hypertension, preeclampsia. and gestational diabetes, as well as apps for educational content.  Mobihealthnews

Diagnostic monitor Tyto Care is partnering with Prisma Health, the largest healthcare system in South Carolina, for remote diagnostics and treatment during video consults. Their physician network will be equipped to provide their patients and Prisma employees with convenient, secure, and clinic-quality diagnostics using the Tyto Care kit during telehealth visits. Release, Mobihealthnews

CVS Aetna testing social determinants of health with Medicaid HealthTag pilot

November 26, 2020 | by

The meshing of payer, retail, and service enhancements to improve health outcomes is the aim of CVS Aetna’s HealthTag pilot in Louisiana and West Virginia. It’s not terribly complicated. Aetna Medicaid (state health program) members picking up their prescriptions at CVS pharmacies will receive tucked into their prescription bag information on social and community services that may be useful to them, services such as food, housing, and transportation. An outside organization, Unite Us, is the resource for these social care programs. 

HealthTag is part of a broader and older ongoing program, Destination: Health [TTA 27 July 19] with Unite Us and a five-year affordable housing initiative. Unite Us’ community organizations had to do quite a bit of adjusting to virtual assistance from in-person after the pandemic hit. R.J. Briscione, senior director for social determinants of health (SDOH) strategy at CVS Health, told Fierce Healthcare that the objective of the “program is designed to identify Aetna Medicaid members who could use additional interventions to address their social needs, but who might otherwise not receive those potential services.” The pharmacy is a logical place as the members may have frequent interactions with their pharmacists for medications. (What is not said that frequent medication use is a leading indicator of multiple chronic conditions which may be mitigated by improvements in food sources, housing, and transportation to work and doctors, and possibly reducing cost.) 

Unite Us is also working with Lyft car service to provide non-emergency patient transportation to referred health appointments [TTA 13 Mar].

SDOH is not new to US payers, but the CVS Aetna integration and delivery is much more seamless than distribution through a practice office or mailers.  (This Editor worked on a WellCare program delivered through participating practices in their Maryland accountable care organization unit, and it was hard to get traction.)

News roundup: Kompaï debuts, Aging Tech 2020 study, Project Nightingale may sing to the Senate, Amwell, b.well, Lyft’s SDOH, more on telehealth for COVID-19

March 13, 2020 | by

Believe it or not, there IS news beyond a virus!

France’s Kompaï assistance robot is finally for sale to health organizations, primarily nursing homes and hospitals. Its objective, according to its announcement release, is to help health professionals in repetitive daily tasks, and to help patients. It’s interesting that the discussion of appearance was to achieve a ‘slightly humanoid’ look, but not too human. The development process took over 10 years. (Here at TTA, Steve’s first ‘in person’ with the developers was in May 2011!) Kompaï usage mentioned is in mobility assistance and facility ‘tours’ and public guidance. Here’s Kompai in action on what looks like a tour. Press release (French/English)

Not much on robotics here. Laurie Orlov has issued her 2020 Market Overview Technology for Aging Market Overview on her Aging and Health Technology Watch, and everyone in the industry should download. Key points:

  • In 2020, aging technologies finally nudged into the mainstream
  • The older adult tech market has been recognized as an opportunity by such companies as Best Buy, Samsung, and Amazon. Medicare Advantage payers now cover some tech.
  • Advances plus smart marketing in hearing tech–one of the top needs in even younger demographics–is disrupting a formerly staid (and expensive)
  • The White House report “Emerging Technologies to Support an Aging Population” [TTA 7 March] first was an acknowledgment of its importance and two, would also serve as a great source document for entrepreneurs and developers.

The study covers the demographics of the older adult market, where they are living, caregiving, the effect of data breaches, optimizing design for this market, the impacts of voice-driven assistants, wearables, and hearables.

Project Nightingale may be singing to some US Senators. The 10 million Ascension Health identified patient records that were transferred in a BAA deal to Google [TTA 14 Nov 19], intended to build a search engine for Ascension’s EHR, continue to be looked into. They went to Google without patient or physician consent or knowledge, with major questions around its security and who had access to the data. A bipartisan group of senators is (finally) looking at this ‘maybe breach’, according to Becker’s. (Also WSJ, paywalled)

Short takes:  b.well scored a $16 million Series A for its software that integrates digital health applications for payers, providers, and employers. The round was led by UnityPoint Health Ventures….Lyft is partnering with Unite Us to provide non-emergency patient transportation to referred health appointments. Unite Us is a social determinants of health (SDOH) company which connects health and community-based social care providers….What happens if you’re a quarantined physician due to exposure to the COVID-19 virus? Use telehealth to connect to patients in EDs or in direct clinic or practice care, freeing up other doctors for hands-on care. 11 March New England Journal of Medicine….American Well is finally no more, long live Amwell. Complete with a little heart-check logo, American Well completed its long journey to a new name, to absolutely no one’s surprise. It was set to be a big reveal at HIMSS, but we know what happened there. Amwell blog, accompanied with the usual long-winded ‘marketing’ rationale They are also reporting a 10 to 20 percent increase in telehealth consults by patients (Becker’s)….Hospitals and health systems such as Spectrum Health (MI), Indiana University Health, Mount Sinai NY, St. Lukes in Bethlehem PA, and MUSC Health, are experimenting with COVID-19 virtual screenings and developing COVID-19 databases in their EHRs. The oddest: Hartford (CT) Healthcare’s drive-through screening center and virtual visit program. Is there an opportunity to cross-market with Wendy’s or Mickey D’s? After all, a burger and fries would be nice for a hungry, maybe sick, patient before they self-quarantine.