Partnerships and Strategy Updates:
Privia Health launched 2 more accountable care organizations (ACOs) and also announced a partnership with Beebe Healthcare in Delaware (12.4k lives in Delaware). (Read more)
CivicaRx, the nonprofit generic pharmaceutical company, announced a partnership with AmerisourceBergen. The pharmaceutical giant will act as Civica's exclusive distribution partner and provide supply chain support for Civica members, which include a consortium of nonprofit hospitals. (Read more)
CVS and Rush University System for Health announced a partnership to allow ACO REACH participating Minute Clinics to refer patients to RUSH primary care physician & specialists. (Read more)
Ardent Health is partnering with Cadence to launch a chronic disease management platform across 30 hospitals, 200 sites of care, and 6 states. (Read more)
Jefferson Health underwent an organizational restructuring, moving its 18 hospitals into 3 divisions, along with some layoffs. (Read more)
Humana and CenterWell announced plans to open 3 de-novo clinics in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. (Read more)
The US Oncology Network added 56 physicians to its footprint through the acquisition of Epic Care and Nexus Health. (Read more)
Optum released a new product called Price Edge, which will automatically choose the lowest price generic drug available to patients. (Read more)
Included Health partnered with Tufts Health Plan and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. (Read more)
Finance and M&A Updates:
Elevance Health is acquiring Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, joining Elevance's family of BCBS brands. (Read more)
LHC Group and Optum are inching closer to regulatory approval, but according to a conversation I had, it's more of a 'no news is good news' scenario meaning that nothing major has been brought up during regulatory review that would prevent closing the deal. So…all engines go?
LCMC Health and Tulane University (HCA) finalized their merger - 3 Tulane hospitals will join LCMC to the dismay of clinicians in/around the New Orleans market. (Read more)
Healthcare bankruptcies rose 84% when compared to 2021, with senior care and pharmacy companies comprising half of those bankruptcies. Very few hospital bankruptcies in 2022. (Read more)
NMS Capital's Urology Partners acquired Urology of Indiana, the largest urology group in the state comprised of 40 physicians and 20 APPs. That's gotta be a massive acquisition. (Read more)
Pipeline Health restructured its debt and is emerging with a new leadership team and $330M lower in debt obligations. (Read more)
BayCare Health System acquired Northside Behavioral Health Center. (Read more)
Digital Health and Startup Updates:
Story Health partnered with Intermountain Healthcare on cardiac disease and specialist virtual care cardiovascular access. (Read more)
Oklahoma hospitals banded together to launch Canopy HealthTech, a new multi-year initiative to accelerate the commercialization of virtual health innovations from Oklahoma universities. (Read more)
Crescendo Health launched in early January with $3.4M in funding to improve the way patients contribute data to clinical studies. (Read more)
Virtual intensive outpatient programming operator Charlie Health announced its expansion into Florida. (Read more)
Teladoc laid off 6% of its workforce and reducing some of its office spend. (Read more)
A bunch of Blues banded together to form Synergie Medication Collective, which is a new medication contracting organization aimed at improving affordability and access to expensive drugs. (Read more)
Datavant and Socially Determined announced a partnership centered around social determinants of health. (Read more)
Iterative Health and Gastro Health are teaming up to bring Iterative's AI-enabled gastroenterology technology to Gastro Health's endoscopy centers throughout the country. (Read more)
Pear Therapeutics' reSET and reSET-O prescription digital therapeutics are available to Florida's five million Medicaid patients via its Preferred Drug List as of this month. (Read more)
Policy and Payment Updates:
MedPAC fee for service payment update recommendations per Axios:
- Hospitals: 1% bump
- Physicians: Tie reimbursement to 50% of the Medicare Economic Index
- Home Health: 7% cut
- SNFs: 3% cut
- IRFs: 3% cut
- OP dialysis: in-line with current statutes
- Hospice: Adjust aggregate payment caps for wages, then reduce it by 20%
MSSP, ACO REACH, and Kidney Care Choices will cover 13.2 million Medicare lives in 2023. (Read more)
Physicians are seeking a permanent fix from Congress to address payment cuts in Medicare. (Read more)
Gorilla Health released its 2023 state of interoperability report chock full of interesting information from CIOs and other execs on everything clinical data and health information. (Read more)
Merger filing fees are set to skyrocket and were included in the passage of the Omnibus spending package: "Filing fees for the largest transactions valued at over $5 billion, are expected to increase to $2.25 million, up from $280,000. Fees for the smallest deals valued at between $101 million and $161.5 million would decrease to $30,000 from $45,000. The new fees are expected to go into effect in 2023, the statement said. The exact timing is uncertain." Fees will go toward funding antitrust enforcement. (Read more)
UPMC is under fire from two Pennsylvania lawmakers related to monopolistic practices. (Read more)
California is suing PBMs over insulin price collusion. COLLUSION! (Read more)
Costs, Data, and Other Updates:
Healthcare added 55k jobs in December, 30k of which were outpatient. (Read more)
More Americans than ever - 38% - are putting off care due to cost. IT's a 12 point increase from the past 2 years. (Read more)
Telehealth utilization fell 4% in October 2022. (Read more)
Medical residents are unionizing in increasing numbers. (Read more - paywall WSJ)
Here's a overview of Medicare spending and financing from KFF. Total payments in 2021 were $829B, 48% of which goes toward Part B (outpatient, physician admin drugs). Medicare is 21% of national health spending and 10% of the federal budget. (Read more)
The city of New York is trying to move city retirees into an Aetna MA plan without their consent. Yikes. (Read more)
Healthcare worker pay satisfaction is the lowest across all 27 industries in the US. (Read more)
While enrollment in the ACA marketplace as a whole in the Open Enrollment Period for 2023 is on pace to finish about 13% higher than in OEP 2022, enrollment in the eighteen states that run state-based marketplaces (SBMs) is on course to come in about 3% below the OEP 2022 total. (Read more)
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