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Top Stories: Best Buy, Atrium developing hospital-at-home offerings; Microsoft and MITRE develop automated adversarial attack library
A tech retailer is moving into the remote patient monitoring space. What are the details? We’ll suss out those details and more in this week’s Top Stories, including Microsoft and MITRE’s new collaboration on a cybersecurity tool, and hospital groups’ …
Weight Watchers enters telehealth space with Sequence acquisition
Weight Watchers, which now goes by the designation “WW,” is entering into the telehealth prescription drug space, having entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Sequence for $132 million.
The subscription telehealth platform offers access to he…
Connecticut hospitals see expenses rise $3.5 billion post-pandemic
Due to rising medical supply costs as well as the cost of drugs and labor, total expenses for Connecticut hospitals in 2022 were $3.5 billion higher than they were before the pandemic – a more dire predicament than that seen by hospitals nationwide, ac…
Patient groups press government to do more on medical debt
Patient and consumer advocacy organizations, including the Center for American Progress and the Legal Council for Health Justice, have sent letters to the IRS and Consumer Protection Bureau pushing the Biden administration to do more to protect America…
Highmark to predict infectious disease spread with Kinsa
In the wake of a “severe illness season,” Highmark Health is teaming with Kinsa to deploy its real-time illness insights and season forecast to predict healthcare utilization, recognize staffing needs and plan emergency department and ICU bed capacity …
Hospital groups urge Congress to avoid DSH cuts
Nine hospital groups have written to Congressional leadership urging lawmakers to avoid the roughly $8 billion in cuts to Medicaid disproportionate share hospital payments, which could start as soon as October 1.
LRMC pays $4M to DOJ over allegedly impermissible Medicaid donations
Lakeland Regional Medical Center (LRMC) in Lakeland, Florida, has agreed to pay the United States $4 million to resolve allegations that it made donations to a local unit of government to improperly fund the state’s share of Medicaid payments to LRMC.
Insurers had strong year, but weaker earnings are ahead, says Moody’s
Health insurers ended 2022 with earnings up from the year prior, with EBITDA growing 12% in the fourth quarter, though a new report from Moody’s Investors Service predicts that this growth will slow in 2023.
Site-neutral payment policies could save Medicare $471 billion
Adopting site neutral payment policies for Medicare would yield savings for the program, for private insurance premiums and for enrollees’ out-of-pocket costs, which would total about $471 billion over the next decade, according to a new analysis from …
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, DOJ settle whistleblower suit
Dr. James Luketich, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and University of Pittsburgh Physicians have settled with the United States government over a whistleblower lawsuit, brought in September 2021, that alleged fraudulent billing and unsafe surgi…
