The Hidden Administrative Tasks Draining Small Practices Presented by Greenway Health

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Featured Story   A Move Key to Biogen's Kidney Ambitions The deal Biogen is paying $5.6 billion up front to acquire Apellis Pharmaceuticals, a commercial-stage biotech company focused on drugs that address the complement system, a part of the immune system. One of Apellis's products, Empaveli, is approved for treating two rare kidney diseases. Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher said Empaveli complements a key asset in his company's pipeline. The Biogen drug Biogen's felzartamab is currently being evaluated in three Phase 3 clinical trials in kidney conditions. This antibody drug came from a prior deal, the $1 billion acquisition of startup Human Immunology Biosciences (HI-Bio) in 2024. Viehbacher said Apellis's commercial team and nephrology community connections will support the potential commercialization of felzartamab. Why this matters For years, neuroscience was Biogen's focus. Multiple sclerosis medications still bring in most of the company's revenue, complemented by drugs for neuromuscular disorders and Alzheimer's disease. But Biogen has been trying to diversify. The acquisitions of HI-Bio and Apellis solidify nephrology as an additional therapeutic area for the company. Soundbite "This is a new area for Biogen," Viehbacher said. "We believe with felzartamab we've got an extremely valuable program in our pipeline, but we're busy trying to acquire capability in medical affairs, in commercial. And actually, the acquisition of Apellis really accelerates that." —By Frank Vinluan  Sponsored   The Hidden Administrative Tasks Draining Small Practices Presented by Greenway Health Small practices play a critical role in healthcare delivery, but they cannot continue to absorb ever-increasing administrative demands without consequences.  Learn more. Top Stories   The Uninsured Rate Is Soaring — What Can Providers Do About It? The research About 40% of collectible healthcare dollars now come from uninsured patients, a share that has jumped 54% in three years, according to research released this week by healthcare billing company Cedar. Effect on providers The fact that so many Americans are unable to afford health insurance changes the economics of providers' revenue cycle in a profound way, Cedar CEO Florian Otto pointed out. When more of an organization's revenue depends on uninsured patients, collection becomes more labor-intensive and far less predictable. "For providers, that means higher bad debt risk, higher cost-to-collect and more operational strain. It also has an outsized financial impact because every additional dollar collected from a patient does not just add to top-line revenue — it can flow directly to margin. In an environment where reimbursement is constrained, those dollars matter enormously, but they are also some of the hardest and most expensive dollars to collect," Otto explained. What can hospitals do? To help address this issue, Otto encouraged providers to modernize the financial experience so patients are less puzzled about their bills, as well get better at identifying financial risk earlier. "Too many organizations still treat patient balances with a one-size-fits-all approach. The better approach is to understand the behavioral, financial and coverage complexity behind the bill, then guide people toward the path most likely to lead to resolution — whether that is a payment plan, financial assistance, a simpler explanation or a different channel of outreach," he declared.  — By Katie Adams  Amazon Teams Up with Berry Street The news Amazon has added nutrition therapy platform Berry Street to its Health Benefits Connector, the companies announced on Tuesday. What's the Health Benefits Connector? The Health Benefits Connector helps match Amazon customers to digital health solutions covered by employers. When customers search for products related to nutrition on Amazon, the company will promote Berry Street's services. Amazon can also verify whether the customer's insurance plan covers the digital health program using details like their last name, date of birth, employer name and insurance carrier. Berry Street's services With Berry Street, patients can access a network of 1,500 registered dietitians, who can offer nutrition therapy for weight loss, diabetes, prediabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease and maternal health. Patients meet with their dietitians virtually, and can also text their dietitian between visits. Soundbite "By joining Health Benefits Connector, more people will have access to Berry Street's personalized, evidence-based approach that empowers patients to adopt sustainable dietary habits, leading to better outcomes and lasting health improvements," said Noah Kotlove, Berry Street's founder and CEO. "Amazon reaches millions of patients, which helps close the discovery gap to world-class nutrition therapy by uncovering benefits patients already have." — By Marissa Plescia Why the Future of Surgery Will Be Built on Integrated Intelligence, Not More Devices The problem For years, surgical progress followed a familiar recipe: sharpen the image, refine the system, improve precision. That approach made sense when surgery was limited by what the eye could see or the hand could manage. Today, however, the problem isn't the quality of the equipment; it's the fact that they rarely work as a single system. As each device generates more information, clinicians are left to reconcile it in real time. Without true connectivity, the benefits taper off, and the cognitive burden keeps escalating. It's fragmented Anyone who has spent time in an operating room knows how quickly an operation can shift. Whether the encountered anatomy deviates from the scan or tissue tension changes unexpectedly, these moments can alter patient outcomes in an instant. Yet the technology surrounding the surgeon rarely helps interpret these moments. Despite the OR's digital façade, most devices still function in isolation. Imaging provides detail but little context, while robotic systems offer precision yet seldom communicate with other tools. All of it ultimately falls to the surgeon, who must make sense of scattered signals in the middle of an already demanding procedure. When systems are fragmented, variability increases and variability is what patients experience as risk. But it doesn't have to be In places where digital tools are linked, systems can flag when a procedure drifts from expectation or when subtle signals warrant another look. And because the information is shared across the room, the entire surgical team can work from the same real-time picture instead of separate assumptions. Just as important, in ORs that have adopted connected systems, that data is feeding back into training and performance improvement in ways that weren't possible a few years ago. — By MedCity Influencer Ed Chekan Video   Video: A Caregiver's Take on When AI Actually Helps The patient and caregiver experience is key to boosting trust in new technology being adopted. Watch how City of Hope is approaching this — and hear from Arundhati Parmar, editor-in-chief of MedCity News, and Simon Nazarian, chief digital officer at City of Hope.

In Other News

Debunked Episode 25: Sutter Health's Allina Health Acquisition Strategy, a Deep Dive on Doctronic In the latest episode of the Debunked podcast, MedCity News Editor-in-Chief Arundhati Parmar and Samir Batra, Managing Partner of Health Innovation Pitch, discussed recent M&A deals and how bots can be manipulated. AI-Powered Cohorting Is Quietly Reshaping How Real-World Evidence Gets Built The organizations that benefit the most from AI-powered cohorting will not simply be those that move faster. They will be those that embed patient mastering and semantic rigor into reproduceable, inspectable workflows. AI Drug Discovery Is Reshaping Longevity Medicine. Is Your Practice Ready? More therapeutic options times more data per option times the same number of clinical hours equals something that breaks. The practices that will thrive when the next wave of longevity therapeutics arrives are the ones that have already solved this.

eBook   Using Real World Data from the Patient Experience to Improve Drug Development PurpleLab This new eBook highlights how real-world data (RWD) and social drivers of health (SDOH) can lead to more inclusive clinical trials and drugs that improve the quality of life for larger, diverse patient populations, and help drive greater market uptake and revenue. View Now

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