Healthcare Innovation

2 days ago | hcinnovationgroup.com | David Raths

Best Buy, which acquired hospital-at-home solution provider Current Health in 2021 for $400 million, has sold the company back to one of its original co-founders Chris McGhee for an undisclosed sum. Best Buy’s Current Health division counted many large health systems among its customers including Mass General Brigham and Atrium Health.

4 days ago | hcinnovationgroup.com | David Raths

New Orleans-based Ochsner Health is expanding its relationship with a company called Latent that it has partnered with to develop clinical AI tools to help with specialty, infusion, and retail pharmacy prior authorizations. Healthcare Innovation recently spoke with Ochsner CIO Amy Trainor, R.N., about the pharmacy work, AI decision-making at Ochsner in general, as well as her efforts to reorganize how IT work is done at the 46-hospital nonprofit health system.

5 days ago | hcinnovationgroup.com | David Raths

A recent survey of 561 U.S. primary care clinicians found that more than one-third of respondents are worried proposed Congressional changes to the Medicaid program could imperil their practices.  The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.8 million Americans would lose coverage under the House version of the funding bill under consideration.

5 days ago | hcinnovationgroup.com | David Raths

Southeastern Pennsylvania-based insurer Independence Blue Cross (IBX) and Penn Medicine have worked together to reimagine a process that cuts the time providers spend on the administrative work for prior authorization of certain imaging tests. The news coincides with announcements that several large health insurance plans have made a series of commitments to streamline, simplify, and reduce prior authorization.

6 days ago | hcinnovationgroup.com | Pietje Kobus

On June 23, Families USA, a health consumer advocate, released a new report detailing how federal Medicaid cuts included in the current budget reconciliation bill would impact hospital revenues and drive independent rural hospitals to the brink of closure. Independent rural hospitals could lose an estimated $465 million in total patient revenue in 2026 due to federal Medicaid cuts, and because of those losses, could lose on average 56 percent of their yearly net income.