1. Awell + Astrana: Awell partners with Astrana. I have a good rapport with both the Astrana and Awell teams, so it’s a bit of a worlds colliding moment to see the CareOps platform under Astrana’s wing to supercharge clinical workflows. Along with 15 partnered health systems in Europe accounting for 3.2 million patients (an underrated fact of Awell’s business), Awell has quietly been amassing a number of impressive enterprise customers with bigger names to come. This progress speaks to the team’s attention to detail. Awell’s vision also aligns closely with what Astrana is trying to accomplish - value-based care at scale - and in order to scale effectively, you need impactful technology.
2. Healthcare Take-Privates: Rumors of an Accolade takeover interest, R1 RCM goes private in an $8.9B acquisition by Towerbrook and CD&R, rumors of a Surgery Partners sale, Walgreens is considering selling its entire VillageMD ownership after staking the future of the company on it.
3. Ambient Intelligence Updates: Abridge wins a major enterprise customer in Kaiser, which will deploy Abridge’s ambient solution across its entire health system portfolio - deemed the largest generative AI project in healthcare. Abridge has been moving quickly in amassing health system customers. The news - at least at face value - seems to be a loss for Nabla given Nabla’s ongoing pilot with The Permanente Group in Northern California. Other healthcare ambient intelligence news includes Commure acquiring Augmedix, DeepScribe partnering with Ochsner and Texas Oncology (and by the way, I had a great conversation with Akilesh Bapu - they’re doing some cool stuff). The next phase of healthcare ambient intelligence involves consolidation, specialization, and a move beyond scribing into deeper integrations.
4. ER/UCC combos, and the UF Health + Intuitive: Intuitive Health has an interesting model where they stand up a freestanding ER and urgent care combo. Did the patient triage themselves wrong? No problem, pop ‘em next door. Outside of new micro hospitals being built, or ASCs, or physician practices, Intuitive’s model is another way for health systems to invest in thoughtful patient acquisition and expand market reach.
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From ModernHealthcare: “UF Health is one of about a dozen health systems in 10 states partnering with Intuitive Health to set up and run hybrid ER-urgent care facilities. More are in the works; VHC Health, a large hospital in Arlington, Virginia, plans to start building one this year.
5. Weight Loss Wild West: DTC telehealth players are leveraging the current shortage of GLP-1s to fast-track subscriber growth. I broke down the entire issue along with various stakeholder perspectives here. Now, in the biggest signal that this is a short-term bubble of all time, even 23andMe’s telehealth platform Lemonaid is launching a weight loss membership program and study, to include prescription GLP-1s and clinical consults. I’m sure this all will end very well!
6. Health Tech Unicorns: Spring Health raised $100M at a post-money $3.3B valuation on 7/31. I enjoyed reading this breakdown from Kinnevik on why the firm chose to pump $35M into the self-described ‘leading global mental health solution for employers and health plans.’ According to Kinnevik, Spring Health has grown ‘run-rate revenues by more than 15x since Kinnevik’s first investment’ in September 2021, with cash-flow positive expectations on the horizon in 2025. Spring Health holds coverage for 10M lives today and obviously there are much more important metrics than that topline figure, but the investment amount, valuation, and scale speaks to both the perceived need and the level of interest from employers/payors in the space.
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Along with Spring Health, remember Sword Health also reached a $3B valuation. Devoted recently raised an additional $112M to its Series E, at its post-money valuation of $13M as reported by Endpoints. The valuation seems insane given health insurtech’s track record, but I’m rooting for them.
7. IPO Window is Thawing: Somewhat relatedly to 6, Tempus AI, Waystar, Ardent, Concentra’s spin-off, BrightSpring Health, PACS Group all have gone public within the past few months. I know of rumors of a few others (including at least one high-profile PE-backed physician practice management firm), and I have to believe some health tech firms will try their luck at the public markets. Who’s next, and is this time different?
8. One Medical Loses Google: Google dropped One Medical at its sites (10% of ONEM revenue) in favor of fellow concierge and employer-direct primary care service Premise Health.
9. Health System Deals: Most activity in recent memory involves less material health system portfolio restructuring with certain health systems adding to their portfolios. Tenet is selling off 5 hospitals to Orlando Health, and Community Health Systems attempt to do the same. Ascension is exiting Chicago and other markets in rapid fire fashion. Bellin and Gundersen Health rebrand to become Emplify Health. Also remember some of the marquee mergers from health systems so far this year: Jefferson Health and Lehigh Valley Health Network and Risant-Cone Health.
10. Enablement: Elevance Health debuted its primary care enablement platform developed in partnership with CD&R - Mosaic Health.
11. Resources: Read KFF’s 2024 overview of Medicare Advantage, including enrollment updates. MA penetration has accelerated to 54% of all beneficiaries, a trend that will almost assuredly slow given 2024 pressures and 2025 repricing. Elion’s state of AI in RCM report was a great breakdown of the shift happening in a key financial and administrative area for providers. Finally, this dive into the state of telemedicine was a really well done overview from Single Aim with some great growth metrics by specialty and more. Mental health activity is skyrocketing.
