The Healthy Muse (hospitalogy)

Top Weekly Healthcare Stories

The Big Stuff.

Must-Reads from the Week

About those HealthHUBs…

• CVS’ HealthHUB strategy is developing right before our eyes. The healthcare giant is rolling out the highly touted HealthHUBs to select markets. How did they decide which areas to target, though? That’s easy –  by choosing markets where a high number of Aetna members were located.
• In healthcare, it’s all about A L I G N M E N T. Just go look at that one UnitedHealthcare company sometime to see what they’re doing with Optum.
• Speaking of vertical alignment, ironically enough, the U.S. is looking to overhaul its antitrust rules to better define ‘vertical mergers’ – which is exactly what UnitedHealth-Optum and CVS-Aetna are.

Heart Disease is…still around.

• You might think that some states like Colorado, known for its outdoorsy-ness, are healthier. But really, heart disease is rampant everywhere. From the WSJ: Heart Disease Strikes Back Across the U.S., Even in Healthy Places

Positive developments on cancer treatment.

• A newly discovered part of our immune system could potentially be harnessed to treat a wide variety of cancers. In other news, the first U.S. “carbon ion” therapy center opened this week, which is supposed to kill cancer cells that have grown resistant to traditional radiation therapy.

Vox’s latest international healthcare systems to cover are Australia and the Netherlands. Did you know that Australia’s healthcare system is called Medicare? Trendy.

7 Hot Health Care Industry Sectors for Investment, Growth & Consolidation in 2020.

JP Morgan Healthcare Conference Link Round-Up:

In case you missed it, the biggest event in healthcare happened last week. Here’s everything that went down.

ModernHealthcare Coverage:

• JP Morgan’s 2020 health conference highlights from ModernHealthcare

Axios Coverage:

• Day 1 at #JPM20 – Humana, drug pricing, and Methodist Health System
• Day 2 at #JPM20 – Private equity, opioids, and drug benefits
• Day 3 at #JPM20 – The next Humira, Medicaid expansion, and hospital collections

Fierce Healthcare Coverage:

• JPM20: Headlines from healthcare’s biggest conference

The Motley Fool Coverage:

• 3 Big winners from #JPM20 – Mallinckrodt, SmileDirectClub, and Endo International

• The Fool’s Healthcare investing link round-up from #JPM20

Company-specific articles:

• Community Health Systems jumped 15% after its JP Morgan presentation, and is up 25% on the week.
• Tenet outlines plans to ‘aggressively’ scale its outpatient surgery unit, USPI
• Surgery Partners reports 37% of cases are orthopedics, and will focus there in 2020
• Rivals Molina, Centene pitch investors on organic growth.
• Teladoc reports ‘record’ Q4 with full-year 2019 revenue to exceed $550M. The telehealth firm also announced its $600 million acquisition of InTouch Health.
• Why Humana is focusing investments on growing clinical services.

Finally, here’s a brief summary of the high level trends going on at #JPM20:

• From the WSJ (opinion): Takeaways from #JPM20

Digital Health

Top Innovation, Collaborations, and Tech Stories

• Lyft landed a major deal with Sutter Health to provide rides for patients. Score one for $LYFT. Read more about the implications of the partnership from HomeHealthcareNews here.
• SmileDirectClub stock had a good week. Its stock rose 15% on news it will sell its aligners to orthodontists and dentists.
• How Moderna is using Amazon cloud to produce personalized cancer vaccines
• How 7 hospitals are spending innovation investment dollars: UPMC, Providence & more. Read more from the WSJ on how UPMC specifically is planning to spend its smooth ~$800 million
• The media storm has largely moved on from Theranos, but for young female entrepreneurs in healthcare, the Theranos effect might still be in full swing.
• Similar to other partnerships and collaborations we’ve seen, the Mayo Clinic is launching a data analytics initiative for drug discovery. Once we discover all of these amazing drugs, though, who’s going to pay for them?

Election 2020 Updates

One more Democratic debate. Tired yet? If not, here’s the highlights.

• Warren and Buttigieg (still can’t pronounce that) sparred over health care costs
• Warren and Klobuchar think they can lower drug prices without Congress. In fact, the Democrats zeroed in a bit on high drug prices in the latest Iowa debate.
• Bloomberg wants to ban flavored e-cigarettes and said he would if elected president
• Here’s a summary of healthcare definitions – like single payer, Medicare for All, etc. if you want a refresher!

Policy Corner

Stuff you should know.

• The FTC is in support of giving advanced practitioners (AKA physician assistants and nurse practitioners) more autonomy.
• The next intense lobbying fight centers around health data-sharing rules.
• The Supreme Court will take on Pharmacy Benefit Management rate regulation.
• As we all expected, hospitals sued to stop site-neutral payment policies in 2020.
• In a controversial move, Trump asked the SCOTUS to let the immigrant public charge rule take effect
• In other Trump news, his administration released a 5-year healthcare IT roadmap.
• CMS rejects Wyoming’s bid to expand Medicaid to regulate air ambulances
• We’re all expecting the Trump administration to soon give us more info on the Medicaid block grants program (WSJ) – where states receive a lump-sum payment to manage Medicaid programs.
• Finally, MedPAC, a political action committee that advises Congress on healthcare matters, recommended a 3.3% raise to hospital payments in 2021.

Quick Hits

Biz Hits

• Cigna and Oscar are targeting small businesses with a compelling new health product.
• A look at the most interesting health tech at CES 2020
• Partners HealthCare is planning $6.1B (!!!) in expansions
• Spruce Point Management believes that there could be 40 – 60% downside risk in home healthcare services provider LHC Group – mainly driven by poor integration with Almost Family. It’s not often we see a bear emerge in the home health industry. Pretty bold to come out with a report like this.
• Civica Rx, the nonprofit drug distributor, inked a deal to create its own drugs

State Hits

• A state-by-state breakdown of the recent rural hospital closures. (There’s a common theme).
• Beating the national ban to the punch, New Jersey banned flavored vaping products
• ChristianaCare partners with urgent care chain (Delaware)
• Democrats are not fans of Tennessee’s Medicaid block grant. They want the state to have more accountability in how the money is spent.
• Read about Advocate Aurora, the 10th largest nonprofit health system, 5 year strategic plan in Wisconsin. Hint: M&A.
• Baylor Scott and White, the largest nonprofit health system in Texas, opened its first hospital in Austin
• Providence, a large nonprofit in the Northwest, launched virtual care services this week.

Other Hits

• More than 100 billion pain pills saturated the nation over 9 years.
• ‘Concierge’ Medicine, AKA direct primary care, is getting more affordable – but it’s hard to scale.
• The Food That Helps Battle Depression (WSJ)

Thought-Provoking Editorials

• The AI Revolution Is Coming in Emergency Care (U.S. News)
• (Be careful): The healthcare industry is letting surgeons behave like muggers (WaPo)

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