TTA’s Unofficial Summer kickoff: breaking up UnitedHealth to save it, post-GLP-1 weight gain, soft robots, NZ telehealth controversy, Midi Health widening women’s health, AssistIQ, Ambience, more!

May 30, 2025 | by

30 May 2025

Brrrr….it’s unofficially summer as we leave May behind. Our big article this week is your Editor’s think-piece on breaking up UnitedHealth Group in order to save it–and healthcare. We also look at post-GLP-1 weight gain–and what it means for providers, in-person and telehealth, ‘soft’ robotics out of Scotland, NZ’s telehealth war with GPs, and what’s doing at companies like Midi Health, AssistIQ, Ambience, Auxira, and Yosi Health. And plenty of weekend reading and viewing!

Weekend reading/viewing (for me too): Rural telehealth blackouts and value-based care’s ‘utopia’ (Set aside the time)

Short takes: Midi Health’s longevity care for women covered by (some) insurance, NZ government 24/7 telehealth scored by GPs, Auxira tele-cardiology follow-up launches (Two disappointments that look like advances)

News roundup: GLP-1 weight regain real, soft robots walk off 3D printer, Ambience’s AI coding beats doctors by 27%, Get a Second Opinion debuts, $11.5M for AssistIQ (Reality bites GLP-1s and a soft robot wee bairn)

Job Posting: Yosi Health seeks Demand Generation Manager and Manager, Data Analytics & Reporting

Should free-falling UnitedHealth Group be broken up? Or break itself up to survive, before it becomes another GE? (updated) (Not a rant, more a ‘get going’ to avoid disaster!)

From last week: The major news the week before US Memorial Day was the Hinge Health IPO, the first for digital health in two years–but the downside was that it was at a lower valuation. Denouements abounded with most 23andMe genetic assets bought by Regeneron, without a drink of Lemonaid. WeightWatchers’ time may have passed, new heads for Calibrate and Oak Street, and two more ‘arranged marriages’, Smarter Technologies and Fuze Health. An update on the VA EHRM in the budget. Masimo’s recovering, as is Ted of Strata-gee. 

News roundup 22 May: an inflight ‘save’ and AliveCor’s KardiaMobile, rolling out the VA/Oracle EHR in ‘waves’, Fuze Health formed from LetsGetChecked/Truepill, hacking and ransomware 92% of PHI data breaches (A renaming of a 2024 ‘arranged marriage’–can it be saved?)

News roundup: Hinge Health public @$32/share, lower valuation. Is WeightWatchers game over? Calibrate replaces CEO, new prez for Oak Street, NMC gets ‘Smarter’ rolling up 3 portfolio companies, another splash of investor ‘cold water’ (The first health tech IPO in 2 years and ‘smushing’ when they can’t)

Update: Masimo’s website status and an analysis of the Sound United sale (Getting up and running post-attack, but what happened?)

23andMe sold to Regeneron for $256M in court-supervised bankruptcy, sans Lemonaid. And is it worth it? (We come up with a number, it’s likely)

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Short takes: Midi Health’s longevity care for women covered by (some) insurance, NZ government 24/7 telehealth scored by GPs, Auxira tele-cardiology follow-up launches

May 29, 2025 | by

Midi Health broadens mid-life women’s health into longevity–covered by some insurance. Midi Health, which targets women in their middle years (a limiting definition, as this Editor will explain), is pursuing a broader spectrum of services. Their “longevity care” service, dubbed AgeWell, is promoting their ‘whole person’ care. The first step is blood testing and then a virtual visit to review a  personalized care plan involving supplement and medication recommendations, such as hormone therapy. This is an interesting development as it 1) mass markets longevity ‘lite’ and 2) repositions it to be at least partly paid by insurance. Midi is clearly shifting to be more than menopause and about more of the total women’s longevity picture. Axios

Unfortunately, the drawbacks are many to many most interested. There’s no genetic testing. And while some commercial insurers like UnitedHealth, Cigna, HealthNet, and some Blue plans participate, the big omission is Medicare and Medicare-related plans, such as Medicare supplements and Medicare Advantage. The third is marketing that excludes older women. This Editor hates to be Debbie Downer as Midi is trying hard to provide more care plus a continuity of care to women traditionally ignored who are most interested in health and longevity–and believe me, she is, for decades. But it’s very clear that Midi is not interested in women with a few more cycles on the old airframe who are basically healthy, consider themselves still in mid-life, and want to remain so.  All the pictures and testimonials are from women who are 35 (perimenopause) and early menopause (maybe up to 55). Ouch. One can, of course, cash pay for services but it’s very clear that older healthy women in the 60+ age group who are seeking and need services like their offerings aren’t where Midi is at. And that is disappointing.

GPs in New Zealand are warning that the government’s 24/7 telehealth scheme is not all it’s cracked up to be. This Editor hasn’t heard much from NZ (or in Maori, Aotearoa, which seems to be widely used there) of late but this is perhaps an instance of good intentions gone sideways. The chair of NZ’s association of general practitioners, Dr. Buzz Burrell, is cited in Nine to Noon (NZ) 28 May that “to his knowledge, no GP organizations had been consulted over the design of the new telehealth platform, which was concerning.” Dr. Burrell points out that the country has an acute shortage of GPs, estimated at 500-1,000, and further fragment the continuity of GP practice into ‘hit and run’ medicine. An interesting point he made, FTA, was that “research had shown that patients who had the same GP for five years, lived four years longer on average, and had 30 percent fewer referrals to secondary services.” This is a terrific argument for family/primary care.

Background: The NZ Digital Health Association chair is promoting it as it would making it easier for patients to access a doctor and help to avoid “clogging up the hospital system”. NZ is funding a scheme for after hours urgent care but GPs have already said that the NZ$164 million (US$ 98.1 million) funding over the next four years is nowhere near enough–and with the local shortages, who will be staffing the centres? Nine to Noon 19 May  Hat tip to Editor Emeritus Steve, from Roy Lilley’s NHS newsletter today (but I didn’t see it!)

Auxira Health moves out of stealth for ‘white label’ tele-cardiology services. The telehealth startup is centered on cardiology followup as what they term a ‘practice extension’ (clever!) supplementing practices with remote advanced practice providers (APPs) to serve patients in low-acuity visits and handle administrative tasks like inbox messages for physicians. Where it’s different is to match the APPs and services to meet the needs of specific cardiology practices. It was designed out of MedStar Health, funded by the American Heart Association’s Studio Red venture arm, plus Abundant Health Ventures and the investor’s consortium of 17 health systems about a year ago. CEO Inna Plumb was a founding partner at Redesign Health and CEO and co-founder of MedArrive. FierceHealthcare

News roundup: 4.3M HealthEquity member data breach, CrowdStrike health fallout, more Congress pounding of VA/Oracle; Flo app now unicorn (UK), fundings for Clarapath, CoachCare; AvaSure buying Ouva

July 31, 2024 | by

Health savings account (HSA/FSA) provider HealthEquity had a three-month breach that compromised 4.3 million member accounts. The breach originated with an undisclosed third-party vendor, in a pattern that has become familiar. According to HealthEquity’s filing with the Maine attorney general (though HQ’d in Utah), the breach occurred in that vendor’s “unstructured data repository” at HealthEquity, outside of their core systems, after the hacker stole the password out of a vendor user account. Unfortunately for HealthEquity, the hack that started in March wasn’t discovered until 26 June, giving the hacker free rein in that database for three months. What’s surprising is that the breach wasn’t worse.

HealthEquity is a third-party administrator for companies of FSA/HRA, Commuter, COBRA, and Lifestyle plans.

The Maine AG filing states that information stolen may include customer names, addresses, phone numbers, their Social Security number, information about the person’s employer, benefit type, diagnoses, prescription details, the person’s dependent (if any), and some payment card information. With HealthEquity claiming 15 million+ members, the breach affects a substantial 29% of its membership. Actions they are taking are to notify members and provide them with credit monitoring services through Equifax with a reference guide. HealthEquity notification page, TechCrunch, HealthcareITNews

CrowdStrike’s antivirus software update that went waaaay sideways continues its fallout. As most know, it happened when they pushed an update and patch to Falcon, a cloud-based anti-cyber attack product that uses AI to detect intrusions. Well, Falcon’s AI wings were fractured on that 19 July push where testing was apparently lacking. BSOD became their new thing. What made the news was the devastating effect on 8.5 million Windows devices, only about 1%–on Delta Air Lines’ aircraft scheduling and the shutdown of many systems such as 911 and police within cities and states, but apparently a curtain was drawn around the healthcare bed. EHRs were affected at major systems such as Kaiser Permanente, Providence, Henry Ford Health, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Mass General Brigham, RWJBarnabas Health, Penn Medicine, and Seattle Children’s Hospital, causing postponements of medical procedures. At Providence, it totaled 15,000 of the organization’s servers, as well as about 40,000 of its 150,000 computers. It was the equivalent of a cyberattack without being a cyberattack. According to industry analyst Parametrix, US Fortune 500 companies (excluding Microsoft) lost a total of $5.4 billion. MedCityNews

With this kind of devastation, it’s no surprise that these companies and the government are rethinking their approach to cloud computing. They’re very concerned about the oligopoly of three providers: Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. Microsoft has 40% of the cybersecurity market with CrowdStrike 15% concentrated in larger organizations.“We’re reaching the point where over-centralization makes us less ‘healable,’ and less resilient,” Robert Thomas, owner of cybersecurity company 180A Consulting said. “We’re losing our resiliency as a nation.”  Systems are still not back up and neither is the CrowdStrike stock. Rumors do persist that they were hacked. Epoch Times   Microsoft also published a recovery tool for IT administrators to expedite the repair process. FierceHealthcare

The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization hearing on 22 July had some further flak-gathering from committee members. Most of the criticism concentrated on the joint MHS/VA rollout at Lovell Federal Health Care Center and the amount of work it required to get the Oracle Cerner EHR to work mostly right. While VA and Oracle leaders insist that Lovell went better than anyone expected, the resources used at Lovell cannot be duplicated at the remaining VA facilities. VA is already facing a $15 billion shortfall for FY 2024 and 2025. The Lovell center had a persistent problem in processing prescriptions, with 60% going unfilled. In member Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.) words, “I think we are far from ready to endorse further go-live activities. The two departments threw more resources at this go-live than will ever be available at any future VA facility.” Healthcare Dive  Earlier coverage TTA 24 July

The UK women’s health app Flo is now a unicorn. Their Series C of $200m (£156m), funded solely (and unusually) by General Atlantic, put them at a valuation of over $1 billion. Their total funding is $275 million. Two General Atlantic executives will be joining Flo’s board, Tanzeen Syed, managing director, and Jessie Cai, principal. Flo helps users track ovulation and menstrual periods, enabling calendaring of fertility, and monitoring of over 70 symptoms. It also assists with pregnancy health guidance. The raise will be used to expand into new user segments including perimenopause and menopause. Its current base is 70 million monthly active users (MAUs) and close to 5 million paid subscribers. Flo is marketed in 66 countries, including the US, India, Indonesia, and Nigeria, with centers in Lithuania and the Netherlands.  Release, UK Tech News

Funding/M&A wrap:

Clarapath, a medical robotics developer based in White Plains, NY, scored $36 million in a Series B-1 funding round from Northwell Ventures with participation from new investors Ochsner Ventures, CU Healthcare Innovation Fund, and Mayo Clinic. Clarapath automates pathology lab work. Its SectionStar platform sections biopsy tissue with improved accuracy. It is pre-revenue with a total of $75 million in funding. Axios, Mobihealthnews

CoachCare, a remote patient monitoring/virtual health monitoring developer for practices and health systems, added $48 million in an unlettered venture round funding led by Integrity Growth Partners with participation from Topmark Funding. The platform combines software and connected devices with outreach for RPM, chronic care management, and other virtual care for about 150,000 patients. Funding to date is $49 million. It has acquired four companies in the past year: NVOLVE, CareSpan Health, Alertive (formerly part of Carbon Health), and WebCareHealth. Release, Mobihealthnews

Another virtual care company, AvaSure, is acquiring Ouva’s smart hospital room solutions. Ouva has been partnering with AvaSure to supply AI-enhanced care automation technology. The acquisition will expand the ambient AI capabilities of AvaSure’s Intelligent Virtual Care Platform and double in-house AI engineering resources. AvaSure’s primary market is hospitals. Ouva will continue as a separate company with its pediatric and wayfinding business. Cost is not disclosed. Release, HIStalk 7/31

Femtech’s huge potential global healthcare market–but needs to connect with payers and employers

January 17, 2020 | by

‘Femtech’ is one of those newish umbrella terms that corrals health tech that enables women to manage their health better. Most of women’s health products cluster in birth control, fertility, pregnancy, and early maternity, with little outside this area or for older women. A number have gotten substantial funding rounds–in Q3, Nurx (birth control, $52M), The Pill Club ($51M, ditto), and Cleo (pregnancy and post-partum coaching, $27.5M). Rock Health

Research2Guidance has dug a little deeper in its new study,
The Global Market Of Digital Women’s Health Solutions 2017-2024  and discovered 3,000 app-based solutions, 151M annual downloads and millions of active users globally. 20 percent of US women in the femtech core demographic use a health app, and R2G projects global market revenue will reach $297 million. Global market expansion is likely to be greatest in countries like India and China

What femtech lacks, according to R2G’s Ralf Jahns, is validation. Those 3,000 companies haven’t quite concentrated on their user case and benefits which could lead to validation and payer/employer reimbursement. And strategies haven’t quite jelled yet.