healthy muse healthcare news.
- This week in healthcare: Oscar Health the Health-Tech Unicorn’s S-1, Clover’s Short Selling Scandal, 23andMe’s sketchy SPAC presentation, JnJ’s vaccine, interesting home care trends, insurance earnings trended downward after a pickup in healthcare activity in Q4, and more.
All About Oscar Health.
The long-awaited tech-full-stack-healthcare-unicorn company firm startup Oscar Health filed its IPO paperwork late last year and published its S-1 form for the world to see this week. (Link)
Oscar, the Good: The health insurance firm provides insurance plans mainly focused on the individual market and differentiates its product from other insurance offerings through its tech platform. Their data shows that the platform enables a better customer experience, which provides the firm with data-driven insights into care delivery patterns. Oscar’s membership base is growing big-time.
- Compared to the big insurers, Oscar claims a much better patient experience (the firm’s Net Promoter Score is 30 compared to the average insurance NPS of around 0). Its platform also seems to be scalable, which could be a yet-untapped avenue for growth.
Oscar, the Bad: Despite a decade of operation, Oscar is still hemorrhaging losses. The jury may still be out as to whether or not the product is differentiated enough to create staying power against the incumbent insurance behemoths.
More Oscar Health analyses:
- The Caseload: Oscar’s S-1: Why it matters. (Link)
- Kevin O’Leary’s bull and bear thesis for Oscar. (Link)
23AndMe’s Sketchy SPAC.
Last week, I touched on 23andMe’s decision to go public via Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson’s SPAC in a deal valued at $3.5 billion. Some individuals took deep dives into the DNA testing firm’s investor presentation and well, folks…there’s some definite spin going on. I found this Twitter thread especially amusing and quite the bearish opinion. (Link to investor presentation)
Incredibly, 23andMe is going public at a time when its revenues are shrinking significantly as the DNA testing fad dies out. To counter the unfortunate shrinkage, the firm is trying to pivot into a value-add for biotech giants and research into promising new drugs while adding a subscription product to its offerings which no one appears to know what it actually is.
- Then there’s the question of data privacy, too. Maybe if things don’t work out, 23andMe will sell American DNA data to China. I suppose it’s more of a threat than we might think, considering 60 Minutes just released a feature on it. (Link)
Clover Health’s Rough Week.
Not to be left out of the fun, recently SPAC’d insurance product Clover Health took a beating this week resulting from famed short-selling shop Hindenburg Research’s scathing short selling report on the company, which touched on:
- An undisclosed DOJ investigation connected to Clover potentially paying illegal kickbacks;
- A sketchy related party subsidiary also ‘thinly disclosed’ by the firm, Seek Insurance;
- Turnover at the executive level in the company implying inner struggles;
And more. You can read Hindenburg’s Twitter thread here, which touches on the main points from the report. Of course, Clover replied quickly with a Medium post of its own from its CEO and President claiming that the firm believes it made all appropriate disclosures and that its subsidiary Seek Insurance is truly independent. (Link to Clover Response)
All in all, a pretty messy, fun week in the public markets.
Coronavirus updates.
Cases: continue to decline (Link). Of course, new variants continue to raise concern globally as it’s pretty likely the ‘Rona is here to stay with us for good. Vaccinations per day are sitting at a run rate of 1.5 million. We’ve now vaccinated about 43.1 million folks. (Link)
- Promising news from Israel emerged recently, where vaccinations are apparently making a dent in cases and spread. (Link)
Johnson & Johnson: submitted its vaccine data to the FDA for emergency authorization. The FDA is meeting to decide on February 26th, which initial batch of doses to be supplied shortly thereafter. (Link)
- I found this Stat article to be highly informative detailing how the three vaccines differ from one another
AstraZeneca: Received some good and bad news this week. Its vaccine was proven to drastically cut down on the transmission of the coronavirus. (Link)
- The Bad: the vaccine candidate was proven to be pretty ineffective against the South African variant. As a result, South Africa has ended the rollout of AstraZeneca’s vaccine within the country. (Link)
Distribution and other stuff: Walmart is joining in the vaccine distribution challenge. Britain will test mixing and matching the different vaccines to see if they’re still as effective. States are complaining about the feds’ data system holding up vaccination efforts. An analysis of what went wrong with America’s $44 million vaccine data system. Finally, a good read on the complexities of manufacturing and open source technology.
Quick Hits
Biz Hits
Partners: In a more interesting partnership announcement, Humana and in-home care provider DispatchHealth announced a collaboration to provide Humana members with access to higher acuity care in the home. Keep an eye on the ‘hospital at home’ trend! (Link)
- Speaking of in-home care, there were a few other interesting stories on the sector. First up was home care unicorn Heal, which announced an expansion of its service offering to an estimated 134 million Americans. (Link) Next was an informative article discussing the trends to watch for in home care, including a move toward franchise models, expansion of care management offerings, increased demand for companionship services, and more. (Link)
Insurance earnings: were hit hard in Q4 as medical costs from elective procedures increased while Covid-19 costs remained elevated. Links to earnings write-ups:
CEO Departures: Two big departures among health executives this week. UnitedHealth’s CEO Dave Wichmann stepped down and will be replaced by head of Optum Andrew Witty. (Link) In the biotech space, Merck’s Kenneth Frazier will step down from CEO as well. (Link)
Talkspace: Read through Talkspace’s investor presentation and S-4 here. I feel as if this firm isn’t generating a ton of attention or hype, which is what makes me interested in learning more about it. It’s got a good brand name in a fast-growing sector. (Link – investor presentation)
Cloud: Kaiser Permanente announced a cloud collaboration with Accenture and Microsoft this week to improve its offerings in the space. (Link)
Policy Hits
Brookings Institute: Read this informative summary that takes a really deep, wonderful dive into understanding the No Surprises Act. (Link)
Expectations: Read another informative summary about what to expect for health policy in 2021 from Manatt. (Link)
CMS: Chiquita Brooks-LaSure is the leading candidate to become head of CMS under the Biden Administration, according to Politico. (Link)
Other Hits
Interference: A Michigan hospital found that the iPhone 12 can deactivate implantable medical equipment. Yikes. (Link)
Opioids: Consulting giant McKinsey is paying almost $600 million to settle opioid case. Who remembers the infamous slide deck about increasing dependency on opioids to drive sales? (Link)
Mental Health: ER visits for mental health related issues increased during the pandemic. (Link)
The Flu: Where did the flu go? Viral interference, explained. (Link)
Thought-Provoking Editorials
Senior Housing: M&A will rise, occupancy will take longer to recover. (Link)
School: Kids don’t need Covid-19 vaccines to return to school. (Link)
Remote: Are we overhyping telemedicine? (Link)
Social: Part 2 of Out-of-Pocket’s series on how best to build patient communities. (Link)
Healthy Muse Top Picks
Infrastructure: Read this informative post from Health API Guy on ‘rails and ramps’ in healthcare. (Link)
Yikes: How certain hospitals improperly bill certain Medicaid patients involved in car crashes – by placing liens on their settlements. (Sheesh)
Corona: Inside the worst-hit county in the worst-hit state in the worst-hit country. (Link)
Thanks for reading.
Save yourself some time by subscribing to our all-in-one newsletter. Subscribers get the first edition – every Monday night.
About the Healthy Muse.
The Healthy Muse is the alternative to boring healthcare news. It’s one weekly e-mail updating you on all the major strategy news, policy news, broader trends, big stories, and everything in between. Learn more about our vision here.
Get smarter and sign up below today.