What You Should Know: - SimpliFed, the telehealth platform dedicated to democratizing access to baby feeding services, announced it has closed $6M in its seed round, led by Morningside Ventures and The Venture Collective, with participation from NY Ventures, Elizabeth Street Ventures, Waterline Ventures, and 3CC. - SimpliFed provides virtual breastfeeding and baby feeding support fully covered by your health plan from pregnancy to weaning. Virtual Inclusive Baby Feeding Support for
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Why The End of the Public Health Emergency is Everyone’s Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic led to sweeping healthcare policy changes that enable vulnerable Americans to receive affordable health coverage and access essential safety net benefits. The steep incline in unemployment and fears that millions of people would lose their health coverage drove the declaration of the national public health emergency (PHE) on January 31, 2020. Under the PHE, states must keep Medicaid enrollees continuously covered, irrespective of their circumstances. With the PHE set
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Why Medicaid Programs Need to Update Their Information Systems
You don’t have to be a news junkie or political aficionado to know that state unemployment information systems massively failed during the COVID-19 pandemic at a time when they were most desperately needed. Overwhelmed by a rush of newly laid-off workers, websites crashed and timed out while phone lines were tied up for hours, leading to frustration and delays in benefits payments – harming local economies and imperiling American families. In Ohio, unemployment overpayments reached
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Q1 2021 Health IT/Digital Health PC/VE, M&A, IPOs/ SPACs Activity
The first quarter of 2021 has been one of investor optimism as the vaccine rollout continues ahead of expectations and economic activity begins to accelerate in response. Within the Health IT industry, the already strong investment and M&A trends seen in 2020 have only accelerated. Over the course of the quarter, we observed $7 billion in private equity and venture capital investment across 158 companies. By comparison, Q1 of 2020 saw $3.2 billion and 127 investments. Health IT
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Payers Struggle with Provider Data Management Too
Provider data management is usually discussed from the provider perspective: the busy staff, the needless paperwork amid a pandemic, the faxing, emailing and uploading of data. In these scenarios, the health plans are often painted as the villains for their bureaucratic processes and unique requirements. But the reality is that health plans aren’t totally to blame. Payers and providers share a common goal: to provide the best quality care for their patients. The amount of data, including
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COVID-19 Pandemic Further Exposes Systemic Racism…
This will be ugly and sad. Racism has cost this country $16 trillion over the last twenty years according to a recent Citigroup report. Much of this loss ($13 trillion) was attributed to discriminatory lending practices and the 6.1 million fewer jobs created as a result, while disparity in wages ($2.7 trillion) and discrimination in housing policies and lost income due to restricted access to higher education accounted for the balance. The report estimates that if these gaps were to be
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Rural Hospital Execs Can Beat COVID-19 By Shifting From Reactive to Proactive Care
The COVID-19 virus is ravaging the planet at a scale not seen since the infamous Spanish Flu of the early 1900s, inflicting immense devastation as the U.S. loses more than 200,000 lives and counting. According to CDC statistics, 94% of patient mortalities associated with COVID-19 were simultaneously suffering from preexisting conditions, leaving a mere 6% of victims with COVID-19 as their sole cause of death. However, while immediate prospects for a mass vaccine might not be until 2021, there is
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Why COVID-19 Underscores The Importance of Social Determinants of Health
Google “Social Determinants of Health” and one will quickly discover a kind of litany of data pointing to a certain definition of “health” defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” and socioeconomic barriers, which may prohibit equitable access to good health and wellness (Healthcare) more completely among diverse populations. Nevertheless, the heart of the matter
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Why Government-Supported Health Plans Must Make Encounter Submissions A Top Priority in 2020
Encounter data such as diagnosed clinical conditions and services, or items delivered to healthcare consumers to treat these conditions is the key to success for all healthcare organizations participating within the government space. Whether doctors or hospitals are submitting data for medical services rendered under Medicare Advantage, the Affordable Care Act’s state exchanges or Medicaid, encounter data is used for payment reimbursement and reconciliation between the health plan and the
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3 Trends Driving Healthcare Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) Activity in 2020
Livingstone’s
Ryan Buckley shares insights behind the prevalent healthcare M&A trends of
2020 and its impact on U.S healthcare. The New
Year often brings with it an essence of transformation. This year, U.S.
healthcare’s metamorphosis is now more than a decade old, as it continues to
shed its antiquated legacy systems and siloes to embrace a different kind of entity—one
that hopes to establish weight in value-based care at a scale robust enough to
substantiate it.
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