The Health Care Blog – Page 144 – Everything you always wanted to know about the Health Care system. But were afraid to ask.

Above the Fold

It’s (Cyber)Criminal

Nov 4, 2020

By KIM BELLARD

One of the redeeming aspects of crises is that, amidst all the confusion, suffering, and loss, there are usually moments of grace, of humans showing their best nature. With COVID-19, we’ve seen health care workers working long hours in dangerous conditions. We’ve seen other essential workers — including not just first responders but also grocery workers, meatpackers, trash collectors, and countless others — putting their own safety at risk so that our lives can go on. There are heroes all around.

Unfortunately, crises also tend to bring out the worst of our natures. With the pandemic, those trillions of dollars in play have brought out not just those seeking to profit, but also those looking to profit by breaking the law. We’ve seen people stealing or counterfeiting stimulus payments, defrauding COVID unemployment payments, getting fraudulent PPP loans, and stealing PPE.

And then there are the cyberattacks.

Last week the federal Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, the FBI, and HHS issued a joint alert Ransomware Activity Targeting the Healthcare and Public Health Sector, warning that they have “credible information of an increased and imminent cybercrime threat to U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers.” I’ll spare you the technical details of the expected attack strategies or suggested mitigation efforts, but I will note that they warned: “CISA, FBI, and HHS do not recommend paying ransom.”

Hospitals could ask Universal Health Services (UHS) about that. UHS took some three weeks to resume “normal services” after a ransomware attack that hit their 250 U.S. hospitals in late September. UHS claims that “While our information technology applications were offline, patient care was delivered safely and effectively at our facilities across the country utilizing established back-up processes, including offline documentation methods.” E.g., paper records.

Or they could ask the family of the woman in Germany who died as the result of having to be diverted to another city for her medical emergency because the closer facility had suffered a ransomware attack. One suspects there may have been other deaths, and other adverse outcomes, due to cyberattacks, and that we can expect there to be more.

#Healthin2Point00, Episode 164 | Election Day Edition

Nov 3, 2020

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is wondering which European countries let Americans in without a quarantine. On Episode 164, we’ve got more deals for you. Human API gets $20 million seeking to make the world interoperable, Curve Health raises $6 million for its skilled nursing tech platform which has seen a bump in COVID times, 7Wire spends more of their Livongo money with $18 million going into Homethrive which does navigation for seniors, KēlaHealth raises $12.9 million in a seed round which applies AI to surgical outcomes, and Ontrak acquires behavior change platform LifeDojo. I’ll leave you with my forecast for the election and for the Senate, so we’ll see what goes down tonight. —Matthew Holt

Nov 3, 2020

A Cure at Any Cost? Time to Shine a Light on Drug Pricing

Nov 2, 2020• 2

By CECI CONNOLLY and BOBBY CLARK

We are all are anxiously awaiting the approval and delivery of a cure to the novel coronavirus – or better yet, a vaccine.

Amid the race to develop a safe and effective vaccine, some may be inclined to give drug companies a pass on their well-established bad behavior related to pricing and market competition.

But that would be an awfully expensive mistake.

As the COVID-19 pandemic claims more lives and families’ livelihood, policymakers and the public must press drug makers for more information on the products they are developing. The country must be protected against price-gouging for therapies that could bring the pandemic to a halt.

Yes, we need America’s biopharmaceutical companies to develop a cure or vaccine so we can resume our normal lives. And yes, they should be compensated for their work.

But no, a cure should not come at any cost.

Health in 2 Point 00, Halloween Edition (Ep 163)

Oct 31, 2020• 1

It’s the Halloween edition of Health in 2 Point 00 where we round up a bunch of smaller deals plus Medidata buying MC10. The smaller ones include Navina, Nice Healthcare and Vitable (who appear to be the same thing in telehealth), Coa (mental health group classes), and Quit Genius (smoking cessation) which somehow has the tennis playing William sisters on board. But the main question of today is whether Jess DaMassa is wearing a mermaid tail below that wig!—Matthew Holt

Election Issue Spotlight: “Junk” Insurance Makes a Pandemic Even Worse

Oct 30, 2020

By ROSEMARIE DAY and NIKO LEHMAN-WHITE

One of the most important responsibilities of the American government is to protect its citizens from harmful industry practices, from lead poisoning to dangerous pharmaceuticals to financial meltdowns. Its record is far from perfect, but government regulators usually act in good faith and in turn earn the trust of those they protect. As we head into Tuesday’s election, it’s important to shine a spotlight on the fact that the Trump administration has betrayed that trust yet again. They have allowed low-quality, unregulated forms of insurance called Short-Term Limited Duration Insurance (STLDI) to prey upon those who lost their jobs during this pandemic. Also known as “junk” insurance, this issue has gotten far less attention than the need to protect people with pre-existing conditions. But the consequences of its inadequate coverage can be just as devastating.

Only 57% of STLDI plans cover mental health care, only 29% cover prescription drugs, and virtually none cover pregnancy. These plans are also allowed to discriminate against the sick, which most do in order to save money. STLDI managed to penetrate the market through a combination of cheap prices, lucrative broker incentives, and deceptive marketing.

Consumers get very little back for their money with these plans. Plans on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges must spend 80 cents out of every premium dollar collected on care. In 2018, the top five STLDI insurers spent only 43 cents.

Originally envisioned as short-term solutions to gaps caused by unexpected coverage loss, the Trump administration extended their maximum length from three to 12 months and allowed renewals that can essentially extend them to three years, thus drawing consumers away from the individual markets established under Obamacare. This was essentially a kick in the gut for the law, after the current administration was unable to win any legislative or court battles against it.

THCB “SPOOKY” Gang: Episode 30 10/29

Oct 29, 2020

Episode 30 of “The THCB Gang” was live-streamed on Thursday, October 29th! Watch it below!

Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) was joined by some regulars and this episode was a spooky be a COSTUME PARTY! On this episode were data privacy expert Deven McGraw (@healthprivacy), writer Kim Bellard (@kimbbellard), health economist Jane Sarasohn-Kahn (@healthythinker), CTO of Carium Health Lygeia Ricciardi (@Lygeia), MD & hospital system exec Rajesh Aggarwal (@docaggarwal), policy & tech expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), and me, THCB’s Editor-in-Chief (@zoykskhan). The conversation had a more spooked tone to it as many of us are worried about the safe transition of power, the safety of voters, the misinformation about herd-immunity, the rising COVID-19 cases, and everything happening in the Senate. What will the results of November 3rd bring for this country?

If you’d rather listen to the episode, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels — Zoya Khan, producer

Rehash: The Health Assurance SPAC

Oct 29, 2020

Not so long ago (August) Jessica DaMassa and I ran a THCB Bookclub interview with Hemant Teneja & Stephen Klasko about their new book UnHealthcare. And, just because, their friend Glen Tullman sat in…..

Fast forward to this week and the three of them plus a cast of characters from General Catalyst & Livongo (Jenny Schneider, Lee Shapiro) have put $500m of their Livongo winnings into a SPAC. The book is based on the idea of Health Assurance and so is the SPAC. So if you are interested in figuring out what they are up to and what they might do or buy, here’s the interview–Matthew Holt

#Healthin2Point00, Episode 162 | Whoop, Honor, Sidekick Health & more

Oct 29, 2020

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is dismayed at her rising premiums. On Episode 162, Jess and I have more deals to cover. Whoop, which makes a wearable, raises $100 million (including SoftBank money!), bringing their valuation to $1.2 billion. Next, Honor raises $140 million in a Series D and I weigh in on how this tech-enabled home care startup has evolved since it started out. DTx company Sidekick Health raises $20 million for its gamified medication management platform,, and SaaS telehealth platform eVisit gets $14 million—is this any different? Finally, Cricket Health which manages complex kidney diseases early names new CEO Robert Sepucha and raises $15 million. —Matthew Holt

Can You Say “Chemputer”?

Oct 28, 2020• 1

By KIM BELLARD

I learned a new word this week: “chemputer.” It’s not a new word – it’s been around since at least 2012 — but chances are, unless you are a chemist or maybe a synthetic biologist, it’s not a word you knew it either. Even if you don’t care about chemistry, biology, or, for that matter, etymology, this is something you might want to pay attention to, because it may end up revolutionizing healthcare.

The term is credited to Professor Lee Cronin of the University of Glascow. Back in 2012, when he was first discussing the concept, he told The Guardian: “Basically, what Apple did for music, I’d like to do for the discovery and distribution of prescription drugs.”

Fast-forward most of a decade and a pandemic, and Dr. Cronin and others are closing in on that goal — although they’ve updated their analogy to “Spotify for chemistry.”

I won’t pretend to understand either the chemistry nor the programming involved, but, simply put, chemputers automate the production of molecules – including prescription drugs, such as, for example, COVID-fighting Remdesivir. CNBC recently profiled activity in the field, spurred by some new papers from Dr. Cronin and Dr. Nathan Collings of SRI Biosciences.