All Access

Health Tech Deals

Health Tech Deals Alerts

Alert

Standard

Health Tech Deals Thought Bubble

Thought Bubble

mustard

BFD Expert Voices - Health Tech Deals

BFD Expert Voices

In a bid to augment its remote patient monitoring capabilities, Athenahealth launched a chronic care management platform, chief product officer Paul Brient tells Axios' Claire Rychlewski exclusively.

Why it matters: RPM is new territory for the electronic health record company, which has primarily focused on revenue cycle management and helping health systems cut costs.

What's happening: "For the first time, we’re going to do clinical work with our providers,” Brient told Claire on the sidelines of HIMSS last week.

"Through this new initiative, we are expanding our partnership from one historically focused on helping our customers run their practices to one where we are also an extension of their care teams," he says.

Athenahealth, which is backed by Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman, employs CCM nurses in Florida, Georgia, and Texas, with plans to expand to every state in the United States.

The company also plans to expand its CCM offering to "patients with all payers and also to include remote patient monitoring services," Brient says.

The big picture: The move mirrors that of other health technology companies like RPM company Biofourmis which is currently providing medical care in 20 states.

The acute hospital-at-home program — which allows treatment for common acute conditions in home settings — was recently extended beyond the COVID pandemic, signaling care will be staying in the home for the near term.

Plus, hospital readmissions are common when patients are not being monitored remotely for risk and medication adherence.

Of note: Athenahealth is filling in gaps across the care continuum, focusing on the front-office experience as well as chronic condition management.

At HIMSS, Athenahealth unveiled its new patient experience offering, which offers self-check-in and a tool to measure digital patient engagement.

"The check-in process is really important to get digital," Brient says, noting Athenahealth's new platform helps streamline insurance crosschecking and digitize statements.

The intrigue: While Athenahealth's primary foothold is with providers, it's taking steps to penetrate the payer market.

With announced partnerships with Humana and UnitedHealth Group, Athenahealth is helping digitize administrative functions, like updating claims statuses and follow-ups on claims inquiries, Brient says.

"That’s been very popular and we’re doing that with a fairly large number of payers," he says.

The bottom line: Major players are recognizing that the health care industry is moving toward a holistic approach.

1 big thing: Athenahealth offering chronic care management

Illustration of a pattern of stethoscopes.

Private equity-backed Unlock Health debuted last week with two acquisitions, as it aims to help hospitals improve their marketing strategies, Aaron writes.

Why it's the BFD: Direct-to-consumer advertising for health services increased from $542 million in 1997 to $2.9 billion in 2016, a JAMA study found — and that number continues to climb.

Details: Private equity firms Amulet Capital and Athyrium Capital merged Braden, Florida-based digital marketing company Eruptr and Houston-based creative agency Decode.

Nashville-based Unlock Health declined to disclose deal terms.

How it works: Unlock works with health care providers on services such as advertising, social, campaign management, marketing analytics, contract modeling, and more.

Eruptr serves more than 200 health care provider clients, offering health risk assessments, while Decode is a full-service digital health advertising agency.

The platform has a combined 120 employees, per the press release.

What they're saying: "This sort of full suite is available in other industries,  but in health care, clients are forced to buy from multiple parties and cobble everything together," says Unlock CEO Brandon Edwards.

The closest competitor is New Mountain Capital-backed Real Chemistry, formerly known as W20, according to Edwards.

"Health systems have spent decades limited by the walls separating patient acquisition campaigns, payor contracts, pricing strategy, and the necessary data and technology required to analyze supply/demand, understand markets, and prove ROI," Edwards says.

What's next: Unlock is focused on integrating its business lines and finishing the development of its digital marketing CRM platform, which will drive efficiency and effectiveness Edwards says.

"Health risk assessments no longer will be marketed as a cost setter but a value driver," he said. "We want to offer fundamentally different solutions, meet the market where they are."

Meeting the market where they are, is all about the evolution of consumerization in health care, according to Edwards.

The completion of the ROI tech piece, part of the CRM platform is nearing completion, as it is in beta now and will be going to market later this year with a fully integrated solution.

"That is our holy grail, and our goal is to have the commercial available in Q3."

State of play: The health care communications and consulting space has seen steady dealmaking in recent years, with interest from strategics and sponsors.

Bon Secours Mercy Health acquired Nordic Consulting Partners from Silversmith Capital Partners for north of $400 million last summer.

Life sciences communications business Spectrum Science, which Axios reported was running a Houlihan Lokey-led process generating in the mid-$20 million range of EBITDA, picked up an investment from Knox Lane in February.

TPG invested into BGB Group in October 2021 at a $760 million value.

Be smart: Health care ad agency Outcome Health remains a cautionary tale, after reports the company misled pharmaceutical clients by "charging them for ad placements on more video screens than the startup had installed."

Outcome founder Rishi Shah was found guilty of mail fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.

2. The BFD: Unlock Health enters health services arena

Illustration of a handshake with shapes and money.

Third Way Health, a Los Angeles-based provider of front-of-office administrative tools for medical practices, raised $1.55m in pre-seed funding led by ApolloMed with participation from individual backers. https://thirdway.health/

Cardiovascular Associates of America (CVAUSA), an Orlando, Fla.-based Webster Equity Partners-backed cardiology practice management services organization, merged with Novocardia, a Florida-based, Deerfield Management-backed developer and tester of value- and risk-based contracting models. https://cvausa.com/ 

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) this week will launch the IPO roadshow for its consumer health products business, which is being spun out under the name Kenvue, per the WSJ.

Alphatec (Nasdaq: ATEC) acquired the surgical robotic navigation assets of Boulder, Colo.-based Fusion Robotics for $55m. https://axios.link/3AmSVkF

3. Deals o' the day

CVAUSA named former Novocardia CEO Dan Blumenthal president of its new Novocardia division.

Vive Collective named former Homeward product advisor Rebecca Mitchell EVP of investment team and product. 

Nick Richitt stepped down as global co-head of health care investment banking at Deutsche Bank to join JPMorgan, per Bloomberg.

Incyte named former PillPack sales principle Kevin Kriel field pharmacy director of dermatology for the West Region.

Cedar named former Olive AI director of strategic partnerships Kristina Pineiro director of client growth.

Butterfly Network named former Caption Health executive chair of the board of directors Joseph DeVivo CEO.

4. It's Personnel

💊 Mark Cuban’s drug company creates pharmacy network to challenge PBMs — STAT

📉 Health care access for trans youth is crumbling — Politico

5. Your daily dose

🐶 Aaron spent most of his weekend walking Tonka around Tompkins Square Park and started prepping for his Italy trip by dining at L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele.

🫶🏻 Thanks for reading, and extra thanks to newsletter editor Claire Rychlewski and copy editor Mickey Meece. Please ask your colleagues, friends and family to sign up.

April 24, 2023

1 big thing: Athenahealth offering chronic care management