Weekend roundup: NHS Dumfries (Scotland) cyberattacked; delisted Veradigm’s strong financials; One Medical NY patients’ coverage clash; Suki voice AI integrates with Amwell; Legrand and Possum extended; Zephyr AI’s $111M Series A

March 15, 2024 | by

NHS Scotland’s Dumfries and Galloway region reported on Friday 15 March a “focused and ongoing” cyberattack affecting their 148,500 patients. Information is light at this point, but the region has reported system incursions that may involve the acquisition of patient data. “We have reason to believe that this could include patient-identifiable and staff-identifiable data.” Police Scotland, the Scottish Government, the National Cyber Security Centre, and the NHS have all been notified along with law enforcement. This story is developing. NHS D&G cyberattack page, BBC News, The Record, Cybercrime Magazine Top News 15 Mar

Delisting from Nasdaq hasn’t hurt Veradigm’s results in the slightest. As TTA and others noted in late February, Veradigm management telegraphed their strong financial state while announcing the acquisition of ScienceIO, an AI data company. These are all unaudited revenue numbers:

  • For 2023, revenue between $608 million and $622 million, net income from continuing operations is estimated between $49 million and $58 million.
  • For 2024, their estimate is for revenue growth ranging from $620 million to $635 million, with adjusted EBITDA of between $104 million and $113 million, with net cash of $140 million subsequent to the ScienceIO acquisition.

Veradigm’s repositioning post-ScienceIO will be around healthcare intelligence with scaled and proprietary LLM products supporting physicians & providers, payers, and life science research enterprises. Release

Now about those 2022 and 2023 financial reports that went sideways due to their financial software. Lee Westerfield, their interim chief financial officer, stated at the Barclays 26th Annual Global Healthcare Conference that the audit process is not only “prolonged” but also not fully in the company’s hands but with auditors. While they won’t say it out loud, it seems that Veradigm hasn’t let the Nasdaq delisting cramp their style, nor making money, at all.  Crain’s Chicago Business

New York-area One Medical patients caught in the UnitedHealthcare-Mount Sinai clash. Mount Sinai, one of the leading hospital systems of the New York metro, is in a dispute with UnitedHealth on their upcoming insurance contract.  Mount Sinai requested higher payments for hospital stays and physician visits, not unexpected given the duration of most of these contracts span several years and inflation has bitten hard over the past two years, but UHG rejected this. The lack of a contract as of Thursday 14 March means that as of 22 March, patients of Amazon-owned One Medical practices in the New York area with UnitedHealthcare and Oxford insurances (Oxford is an insurance brand of UHG) will not be in-network if receiving services through Mount Sinai’s hospital network. One Medical is part of Mount Sinai’s clinically integrated network (CIN) but apparently this has no impact. This Editor is betting that Amazon did not figure on provider/payer disputes of this type–it may be the first of many affecting One Medical with hospital networks. Becker’s

Some good news from Amwell around their new partner, Suki AI. The Suki voice-enabled AI powered digital assistant will be integrated into Amwell’s platform Converge. The voice assistant will not require a separate app as fully integrated into Converge and into Amwell providers’ existing workflows. Suki Assistant leverages natural language processing to help clinicians complete notes 72% faster on average, according to Suki, and also supports coding and dictation. A date was not specified for implementation. Suki has partnered with with multiple EHR systems, including most recently Meditech. The Amwell platform is used by providers at more than 55 health plans covering 90 million lives, plus 2,000 hospitals and health systems. Suki release, Healthcare IT News

In more partner news in the UK, Legrand and Possum have extended their now 14-year reseller agreement. Possum continues as the exclusive reseller for the NOVO range of Legrand telecare products in the UK and Ireland. Read more about it on TSA Voice and UKTelehealthcare. While you’re there, our UK Readers can also seek our supporter UKTH’s continued training events and resources on the 2025 Digital Switchover. Legrand is a long-time advertising supporter of TTA.

Zephyr AI raises $111 million in Series A financing. Revolution Growth, Eli Lilly & Company, Jeff Skoll, and EPIQ Capital Group financed a bountiful Series A scarcely seen since 2022. As you’d expect, Zephyr has this year’s flavor, having integrated AI into precision medicine for oncology and cardiometabolic disease. Zephyr’s earlier seed round of $18.5 million was raised in March 2022 (Crunchbase). From the release: “The new funds will enable Zephyr AI to further enhance its analytical speed and fortify its extensive collection of training and validation data sets. Moreover, the funds will support the expansion of the company’s scientific and commercial teams to expedite the delivery of its rapidly growing pipeline of insights to the market.”

Amazon Care confirms five more cities, beefs up DC lobbying–but what’s the real game?

October 22, 2021 | by

Amazon Care will be expanding in 2021, confirming five new locations–and maybe more. Kristen Helton, the director of Amazon Care, confirmed at HLTH21 that 2021 rollouts of the virtual + mobile care service would include Dallas, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Los Angeles, ‘to name a few’. Ms. Helton confirmed that Washington DC and Baltimore region are live. The website does not state active cities, only permitting a zip code search and confirmation. Pharmacy delivery is also available in select, but not stated, areas. Healthcare Dive

Amazon Care originated with Amazon employees as a telehealth service, with in-person available to employees in the Seattle area. By March, they opened the full service (Video and Mobile Care Medical) to other Washington state companies. At that time, they announced that Video Care will be available nationally to companies and all Amazon employees by the summer–and claimed that in-person services would be rolled out to multiple cities by the summer. That did not happen. 

In June, at a Wall Street Journal Tech Health event, while being coy about the rollout, Amazon Care VP Babak Parviz said that the service would look like:

  • Clinician chat/video connected within 60 seconds
  • If an in-person visit is required, a mobile clinician arrives within 60 minutes, who can perform some diagnostic tests, such as for strep throat, provide vaccinations and draw blood for lab work. For other diagnoses, that clinician is equipped with a kit with devices to monitor vital signs which are live-streamed to remote clinicians.
  • Medication delivery within 120 minutes

Basically, what is not being said is that Amazon has been slow walking Amazon Care, probably wisely. With telehealth visits, mobile care, and pharmacy, there are multiple and complex elements to mesh seamlessly, which is after all Amazon’s Promise. What’s not so seamless is paying for it. While for Amazon it is with immediate payment for service, it is not for the patient–obtaining reimbursement, if available, is left up to the patient–at least for now, as reports indicate they are negotiating with Aetna. Amazon Care is also its own closed network.

There’s also the blunt fact that Amazon is moving into territory well staked out by major players that integrate employers, insurance, primary care, and pharmacy: Teladoc, Amwell, Included Health (Grand Rounds + Doctor On Demand), MD Live. They are now joined by UnitedHealth Care’s announcement a few days ago of NavigateNOW, a new virtual-first commercial plan rolling out next month to employers in nine markets and 25 markets by end of 2022. It offers 24/7 primary care, urgent care, and behavioral health care services through Optum as well as UnitedHealthcare’s national provider network. Many services and medications will have $0 copayments. Healthcare Dive, FierceHealthcare

However, if the cost of Washington lobbying is any indicator, Amazon is blasting off in healthcare. According to a report in OpenSecrets.org, “Amazon, which is creating its own health care service, is the biggest corporate lobbying spender so far in 2021. The company has spent nearly $10.2 million on lobbying in the first six months of the year, and spent $18.7 million in 2020.” The (unfortunately paywalled) report in STAT confirms the hire of Claire Winiarek from PCMA to be their new director of health policy.

This Editor’s opinion remains as in June–that Amazon’s business plans for Care and Pharmacy, and generally in healthcare, are really about accumulating data, not user revenue, and are certainly not altruistic no matter what they say. Amazon will accumulate and own national healthcare data on Amazon Care and Pharmacy users far more valuable than whatever is spent on providing care and services. Amazon will not only use it internally for cross-selling, but can monetize the data to pharmaceutical companies, payers, developers, and other commercial third parties in and ex-US. That’s a very different game than traditional insurers and the telehealth giants.