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Happy Thursday Hospitalogists,
Today we recap with thoughts on the ground at ViVE and some notable healthcare news you should keep on your radar from the past couple of weeks. Let's dive in! |
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Going deeper on an interesting topic, theme, or trend |
Another year, another ViVE wrapped up. - While I am logistically challenged, the LA convention center is a bit of a maze. Though I did appreciate the shuttle system from related hotels to the center. The conference being on multiple floors confused me - though I'm sure other venues have this issue too.
- My happy hour, hosted alongside the wonderful folks at Nabla and Navina, was the premier event of the event (of course). Got to catch up with the Guidehealth crew and unfortunately caught John in deep thought. Next time I'll think before I post. Sorry John.
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- I didn't realize the Lakers and Celtics were playing on Sunday night! As I'm headed toward the center trying to get my badge, I realize I'm walking through hoards of Lakers fans. Wondering where they're all headed, I look up and see that the arena is right next to me. I'm an idiot.
- I finally managed to meet Aledade's Farzad Mostashari after courting him on Twitter for years and following the Aledade story closely. I got the impression that they're still doing pretty dang well which tracks with their most recent annual update on growth. In 2025 Aledade added 700 more primary care groups (a notable acceleration from 500 in 2024), bringing total served to 3,000 partners across 3 million lives in 46 states, and particular emphasis was put on MSSP in both the update and from Farzad during our conversation. Farzad, of course, is extremely thoughtful and our conversation ranged from what's currently broken in MA (selection bias, risk adjustment), how LEAD interests the organization (but they're in wait and see mode), and why MSSP works (supported by CMS) - and how perhaps MSSP should just be what CMS most heavily invests in for accountable care.
- Big themes at ViVE more holistically this year centered around data and consumerism, and these were some of the trends I discussed with Frist Cressey's Navid Farzad, who was gracious enough to talk shop with me after their $425M fund closing. What struck me about FCV's approach is their aim to be thoughtful stewards of capital for their LPs, but also to delight the founders they work with - that their founders are their customers that they need to cater to. The investment firm, a bit contrarian to venture capital in general, is focused on long-term theses in healthcare. Look for more announcements from them soon, including a new incubated company on the horizon.
- Scrub Capital invited me out to a few side events, and their breakfast panel was one of the best I listened to between Geisinger's Jon Slotkin and Susan Collins, AvoMD's Yair Saperstein, Doximity's Amit Phull, and SuperDial's David Khaydatov. Some great viewpoints were shared, including thoughts (and some dissent) around AI doctors in primary care, and how that relationship could disintermediate insurance companies. While I see a different angle, there's something brewing in that arena. Other thoughts that resonated with me from the panel included a consensus that the arbitrary 'admin' vs. 'clinical' side we see today in healthcare doesn't need to actually exist, and has been arbitrarily created via silos.
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- I continue to make it on the media list and I'm hopeful I can make it on the top row one of these years. Can't believe HTN made it up there before me smh
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- Health Data Atlas' Taylor Glass shared some notes with me on her panel on the supply and demand of patient data with consensus being that the patient is the key to unlocking healthcare data interoperability — not because patients should manage their own records, but because the patient is the only entity that can authorize data flows across institutional boundaries that no single health system or payer can mandate on its own. A secondary tension worth noting was the panel disagreed on whether the real demand is patient-facing access or care team access. Particle Health's Abhi Sindhwani argued the honest framing is empowering clinicians with context, not expecting consumers to drive their own data strategy — while HealthEx and Meditech leaned into the patient as the alignment mechanism that makes the whole system work. Both sides agreed that privacy objections are largely institutional cover for maintaining data silos, not legitimate barriers to progress which was notable to me.
- Several people noted to me that any time a conference moves to the coast attendance suffers. I'd say it looked about the same level as the past few years to me but that the floor seemed to be comprised of larger exhibits from the usual suspects. Jorie AI's booth always cracks me up, and shout out to Sal for pouring me some Caymus on the way out Monday afternoon.
- I had a really great engaging conversation with Apella's David Schummers who walked me through their history, strategy, value prop, and model in moving ambient monitoring into the OR and vastly increasing throughput management there. They're notching deals with a number of health systems given how important OR volume is to the financial health of a hospital.
- Shout out to the Dock Health folks who are just salt of the earth people looking to fix and simplify productivity problems across health systems, starting with a huge one in referrals workflows in a partnership at Mayo Clinic. I've been following the Dock Health journey for a while, and they'll look to deploy across the Mayo network and more.
- Finally, Akasa's Ben Beadle-Ryby and I talked about their company's history, and in particular, their work on the inpatient side at academic medical centers. Maybe contrary to other documentation and mid cycle RCM players, Akasa's main footprint and bet lies in inpatient care and finding and correcting documentation errors within IP encounters. Beyond the model itself and obvious value props in quality boosts, acuity increases, and revenue capture, Akasa has also identified that up to 17% of inpatient encounters could be automated without human oversight. Of course, RCM will continue to be in the spotlight for AI use cases.
That's the recap from ViVE! While I can't share everything I learned (to be a good steward of information and when people want to present that information), there are good things coming in healthcare, and builders across the ecosystem engaging in thoughtful dialogue to make our healthcare system a better one. Don't lose hope and stay optimistic, Hospitalogy faithful. What did you notice from ViVE? Hit me up with your thoughts or any interesting companies, takeaways that I missed. |
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Notable Developments Across Healthcare |
The biggest deal of the week belonged to Danaher, which announced its $9.9B acquisition of Masimo, the patient monitoring company best known for its market-leading pulse oximetry technology. The deal values Masimo at $180 per share, roughly a 40% premium above its pre-announcement close. Enhabit is heading private in an approximately $1.1B acquisition by Kinderhook Industries, one of the more significant take-privates in the home health and hospice space in recent memory - particularly post-pandemic. The deal signals a broader appetite among PE investors for hospice and home health assets. Don't forget Enhabit's interesting history, which involves its 2022 spinoff from Encompass Health (now a pure-play IRF operator) along with a lawsuit against the former head of the home health agency (in which they won and now apparently 43% of all future VitalCaring profits will go to Enhabit? Seems like a pretty big deal?? 43% of all future profits??). From a macro perspective, I'm somewhat surprised to see a payor pass on acquiring Enhabit given recent deals involving Amedisys and LHC Group, and related Signify, and in the distant past, Kindred. Policy shenanigans: Two policy stories bookended the week. - First, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 to strike down Trump's sweeping tariff regime, ruling the president exceeded his authority. The administration moved quickly to reinstate 10% tariffs on most imported goods under a separate statute, but the ruling injects real uncertainty into healthcare supply chains.
- Then on Tuesday night, President Trump's State of the Union addressed healthcare across several dimensions, sticking to talking points affordability, rhetoric against payors, tooting his own horn on his reskinned GoodRx TrumpRx, addressing fraud waste and abuse in Medicaid, and HSA expansion.
Hims & Hers acquired Eucalyptus for up to $1.15B, buying ~$450M of ARR and 775K customers across Australia and other international markets. The deal structure includes $240M in upfront cash with guaranteed deferred payments and complex earnout targets through 2029. Hims stock has been under pressure, trading at only ~1.5x forward revenue and a ~$4B market cap, down 60% over the past year. GRAIL's stock plummeted 50% after reporting that its Galleri multi-cancer blood test failed to meet the primary endpoint of a major NHS study. The DOJ sued OhioHealth for allegedly blocking access to cheaper health plans, marking another significant federal antitrust action against a major health system. The lawsuit alleges anticompetitive practices that limited consumer choice and could hold interesting implications for vertically integrated delivery networks. CHS posted $509M in net income as hospital sales boosted 2025 results, but the company continues its portfolio right-sizing with additional divestitures on the horizon. CHS is actively deploying AI and a systemwide Oracle ERP transformation to protect margins. More to come in Hospitalogy on hospital earnings szn. Two notable investment firms closed funds this week: |
HOSPITALOGY TOP READS AND RESOURCES |
- A fascinating case study and overview featuring Scripps CFO Brett Tande's view that MA is so low margin, the only way to make money in it is vertical integration. Scripps reportedly moved most patients from MA to traditional Medicare + Med Supp without meaningful volume decline and eliminated ~$75M in losses.
- PHTI: Clinical AI: Evidence and Policy Requirements for Scaling Adoption — Another thoughtful report from PHTI exploring evidence standards, performance benchmarks, and policy requirements needed to drive clinical AI adoption for conditions like hypertension and mental health.
- Managed Medicaid Enrollment and Profitability: An eye-opening white paper using NAIC data across 170 health plans showing that aggregate Medicaid MCO underwriting margins went meaningfully negative in 2025.
- Medallion: State of Payer Enrollment and Credentialing 2026. New data showing over half of provider orgs are losing revenue due to credentialing delays.
- JAMA Internal Medicine: Software as a Medical Practitioner — An interesting viewpoint arguing clinical AI should be regulated more like clinicians than devices, including licensure, supervised pilots, defined scope of practice, discipline boards, and malpractice accountability. A provocative framework that would fundamentally reshape how we think about AI governance. Read the viewpoint
- Before You Cry 'Fraud': What DOGE's Open-Source Medicaid Data Is (and Isn't)
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So there I was on a rooftop in LA for the Hospitalogy Happy Hour when I notice the bartender is pouring some Blanton's! If you know anything about the whiskey, they have 8 collectable unique tops that are horse racing figurines. I asked him if I could have it if the bottle gets killed and lo and behold, my guy pulls out ANOTHER one to give to me! So now I'm up to 4 unique figurines. Let's goooooo.
Have a good weekend everyone! |
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Thanks for the read! Let me know what you thought by replying back to this email. — Blake |
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