Digital health funding in 2019 suggests more companies will be looking to go public or be acquired in the coming years, according to a report from seed fund and research firm Rock Health. The number of acquisitions of digital health companies in 2019 was about 40 percent below the high seen in 2015, the analysis said. But IPO activity surged as six digital health companies listed their shares, ending a three-year wait for a business in the sector to go public.
(Source: Medtech Dive, 2020-01-08)
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Specialty physician practice management consolidation will remain robust this year. But as more data emerges about the performance of PPMs, investors may become increasingly selective, industry experts say. Since 2016, there have been 147 private equity-led specialty physician practice buyouts in the U.S., according to Mergermarket data.
(Source: Forbes, 2020-01-10)
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Every day, millions of new medical images containing the personal health information of patients are spilling out onto the internet. Hundreds of hospitals, medical offices, and imaging centers are running insecure storage systems, allowing anyone with an internet connection and free-to-download software to access over one billion medical images of patients across the world.
(Source: Tech Crunch, 2020-01-10)
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A New York federal appeals court blocked a federal rule that leading industry advocates warned could hurt immigrant seniors and limit their use of long-term care services. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit handed down the ruling, denying the Trump Administration's request to lift a temporary national injunction on the "Public Charge" rule, the Associated Press reported.
(Source: McKnight's, 2020-01-09)
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U.S. hospitals are standing on increasingly unstable ground as dwindling profits take a toll on operations: At least 30 U.S. hospitals entered bankruptcy in 2019, according to Bloomberg's tracking. And, in some cases, scarce funds are forcing hospitals to close their doors: New data from the American Hospital Association reveals that the total number of hospitals in the U.S. fell by 64 to 6,146 in 2018, the most recent numbers available.
(Source: Business Insider, 2020-01-13)
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The Department of Justice received $2.6 billion in recoveries involving healthcare fraud and false claims in fiscal 2019, officials announced. The recoveries involved all sectors of the industry including drug and medical device manufacturers, managed care providers, hospitals, pharmacies, hospice organizations, laboratories, and physicians.
(Source: FierceHealthcare, 2020-01-10)
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A government watchdog found that deficiencies in federal oversight of the 340B drug discount program may have allowed some nongovernmental hospitals that do not meet eligibility requirements to participate anyway. Auditors found that 25 percent of hospital contracts they reviewed did not specifically require hospitals to serve low-income individuals as defined in the 340B statute.
(Source: Modern Healthcare (free reg. req'd), 2020-01-10)
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There are a lot of factors seniors take into consideration when looking for a care facility: cost, proximity to family, food, religious services. But seniors who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender face additional obstacles; namely figuring out if a home is safe for them to live as their authentic selves.
(Source: Jewish News, 2020-01-07)
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California could become the first state with its own prescription drug label under a proposal Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled. Newsom wants California, home to nearly 40 million people, to contract with generic drug companies to make prescription medications on its behalf so it could then sell them to the public.
(Source: Modern Healthcare (free reg. req'd), 2020-01-09)
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A new survey of nearly 1,500 Americans finds that only a small minority of people consider the religious affiliation of the hospitals that treat them, but a majority said they don't want religious doctrine determining their healthcare choices. The findings, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, show that only 6.4 percent consider the religious affiliation of the hospitals they choose, yet 71.4 percent said that care should not be impacted by religious dogma.
(Source: Psych Central, 2020-01-10)
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Physicians, residents, and medical students all expect new technologies -- such as telemedicine, artificial intelligence, and wearables -- to transform healthcare and are preparing to integrate health data of various kinds into the clinical setting, according to a new national survey by Stanford Medicine. However, the survey shows, the majority of respondents felt ill-prepared for the technological future just over the horizon.
(Source: Medscape (free reg. req'd), 2020-01-10)
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