What You Should Know
The Expansion: Walmart is heavily expanding its digital health platform, Better Care Services, to include comprehensive weight management support for customers exploring or currently taking GLP-1 therapies.The Digital Health Bundle: The retail giant is acting as a centralized hub, partnering with third-party digital health companies including Aaptiv (fitness), Berry Street (registered dietitians), Curai Health (AI-supported coaching), MyCare by Twin Health (metabolic
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Population Health Management (PHM) in Healthcare | News, Analysis, Insights - HIT Consultant
Wegovy HD Now Available on GoodRx for $399 Per Month Self-Pay
What You Should Know
The Launch: GoodRx has announced it is now offering Wegovy HD—Novo Nordisk’s newly introduced, higher-dose (7.2 mg) semaglutide injection.The Price Point: In a major move for the direct-to-consumer market, the medication is available to eligible self-pay patients at a transparent price of $399 per month. Pricing scales predictably to $798 for a two-month supply and $1,197 for a three-month supply.The Clinical Strategy: Wegovy HD serves as an FDA-approved "step-up" option
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Finding the Right Five Percent: How Machine Learning Is Reshaping Care Management
Population Health Has a Precision Problem
Population health programs continue to rely on blunt tools. Many risk stratification approaches emphasize historical utilization—basic risk scores or vendor-generated models that explain who was expensive—rather than identifying emerging clinical risk. These methods struggle to detect deterioration early enough to influence outcomes.
At the same time, care management teams face persistent resource constraints. Organizations cannot provide intensive
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J.D. Power: Why Medicare Advantage App Usage is Plummeting While Commercial Adoption Soars
What You Should Know
The Study: J.D. Power has released its 2026 U.S. Healthcare Digital Experience Study, measuring member satisfaction across five factors: visual appeal, navigation, information/content, speed, and telehealth.The Winners: Cigna Healthcare ranked highest among commercial plans (for the second consecutive year), followed by Premera Blue Cross and UnitedHealthcare. UPMC Health Plan took the top spot for Medicare Advantage (also its second consecutive win), followed by
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Maven Clinic Partners with Wellthy to Offer Integrated Family Care Benefits for Employers
What You Should Know:
The Partnership: Maven Clinic, a leading virtual clinic for women's and family health, has partnered with Wellthy, a platform specializing in personalized caregiving coordination and backup care.The Core Strategy: The collaboration aims to eliminate the fragmentation in employer benefits by bringing clinical care and logistical caregiving support into a unified, connected offering.
Targeting the "Sandwich Generation"
A major focus of the partnership is
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Public Health: ARPA-H Announces $144M STOMP Program to Measure and Remove Microplastics
What You Should Know
The Launch: The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has announced STOMP (Systematic Targeting Of MicroPlastics), a massive $144 million nationwide program.The Ultimate Goal: STOMP aims to develop tools that are fast, affordable, and broadly available, specifically protecting vulnerable populations like pregnant women, children, and highly exposed workers from long-term disease.
Fixing the Data Layer First
While microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs)
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Cityblock Health CEO Dr. Toyin Ajayi Releases Blueprint for AI in Medicaid
What You Should Know
The Manifesto: Dr. Toyin Ajayi, CEO of Cityblock Health, has published a comprehensive report, “Medicaid + AI: A New Standard for Innovation,” arguing that the nation's most vulnerable patient population must be the proving ground for generative AI.The Investment Disconnect: Currently, roughly 60% of healthcare AI investment is directed toward revenue cycle management, billing optimization, and risk adjustment. Conversely, less than 20% of health plans use AI to develop
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Flourish Care Secures $5.7M to Scale Reimbursed Doula Network Nationwide
What You Should Know
The Funding: Flourish Care, a maternal healthcare platform operating a massive network of credentialed doulas, has secured $5.7M in an oversubscribed seed financing round led by Zeal Capital Partners with participation from Create Health Ventures, Collide Capital, Rogue Women’s Fund, Symphonic Capital, Slater Technology Fund, Catalytic Impact Foundation, Capita3, and others. The Regulatory Catalyst: The policy landscape has fundamentally shifted. Currently, 46
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How CMS Policy Just Shifted 30% of Shoulder Surgeries Out of the Hospital
A Shoulder Replacement Case Study
The Bottom Line: When CMS makes a procedure ASC-payable, the shift is fast, measurable, and concentrated in certain territories. Here's what total shoulder arthroplasty can tell us about where the site-of-service mix for hundreds of procedures is headed.
In July, I broke down the 2026 OPPS Proposed Rule and called it a gold rush. The first tranche just hit: 285 procedures came off the inpatient-only list on January 1. The remaining 1,400+ will phase out by
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Azara Healthcare Joins MEDITECH Alliance to Integrate Population Health Platform
What You Should Know
The Integration: Azara Healthcare, a dominant player in population health management, has officially joined the MEDITECH Alliance, enabling seamless integration of its Azara DRVS platform with the MEDITECH Expanse EHR.The Macro Trend: According to a 2025 Sage Growth Partners survey, 77% of health systems and hospitals are planning to increase their participation in risk-based (value-based) reimbursement models over the next two years.The Target Audience: While massive
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