What You Should Know: 

– IKS Health, the premier global solution that revitalizes the clinician-patient relationship acquires AQuity Solutions, a tech-enabled clinical documentation, medical coding, and revenue integrity solutions for healthcare, as a wholly-owned subsidiary for $200M.

– The combined company, which will operate as IKS Health, will have annual revenues of $330+ million, as well as a global workforce of over 14,000 employees serving over 150,000 clinicians in many of the largest hospitals, health systems, and specialty groups in the United States.

Acquisition Advances IKS Health’s Care Enablement Platform

IKS Health’s market leadership in the ambulatory market will be coupled with AQuity’s market leadership in the acute care market to create an entity that enables Clinicians and their Enterprises to deliver better, safer, more efficient care across the continuum of care delivery. This acquisition advances IKS Health’s Care Enablement Platform, consisting of technology and service offerings that span Revenue Optimization, Clinical Support, Value-based care, and Digital Health solutions. Specifically, AQuity’s rich datasets enable IKS to rapidly mature and scale its proprietary AI solutions with critical expertise and guidance from Reinforced Learning Through Human Feedback (RLHF). 

By alleviating these administrative, clinical, and financial burdens, IKS empowers clinicians to focus on their core purpose: delivering exceptional care. As margin pressures increase, IKS also helps healthcare enterprises meet the moment with advanced, proactive solutions that reduce costs and increase top line growth. IKS’s ability to enable financially sustainable healthcare enterprises is critical in the current environment of resource scarcity.

“Healthcare is in crisis, one that is deepening from all sides. Financial instability, large-scale staffing challenges, and the precarious health status of so many Americans all call for deeper, more comprehensive solutions that address these root issues,” said Sachin K. Gupta, Founder and CEO of IKS Health. “Delivering better, safer care is everyone’s top priority—but too often, the ‘chores’ of healthcare get in the way of that core purpose. To help turn the tide amidst this state of crisis, we firmly believe that revitalizing the clinician-patient relationship and helping our partners thrive financially are both fundamental.”

What You Should Know: 

– Commure, Inc., a healthcare technology company acquires intelligent clinical automation platform Rx.Health and is now part of its suite of solutions as Commure Engage. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

– Spun out of Mount Sinai Health System, Rx.Health offers a low-code, no-code clinical care coordination platform that helps health systems, payors, and life science organizations streamline their end-to-end patient care efforts, from patient identification and outreach through personalized care journeys to ongoing care monitoring and alerts. 

Now Available as Commure Engage

Rx.Health serves leading U.S. health organizations including Yale New Haven Health and UnitedHealthcare, the Rx.Health platform combines multiple digital therapeutics, automated nudges, devices, and AI analytics to support patients wherever their care journey takes them. 

Key benefits of leveraging RxHealth include: 

– Boosting system revenue by encouraging preventative care visits, lowering the risk for no-shows and costly patient readmissions, and mitigating patient leakage.

– Improving care quality and access by making it easier than ever for care providers to educate, collaboratively treat, monitor, and follow up on individual care needs.

– Alleviating workforce fatigue through automated patient outreach, freeing clinicians and staff up to focus less on burdensome administrative tasks and more on providing care.

“As healthcare providers grapple with the growing weight of administrative work tax, engaging patients as active collaborators in — rather than passive consumers of — their unique care journey will be one of the keys to unlocking a brighter future for our industry,” said Tanay Tandon, CEO of Commure. “We’re thrilled to welcome Rx.Health to the Commure portfolio, and, together, power unparalleled clinical experiences and financial outcomes for hospitals and health systems across the country.”

What You Should Know: 

– Healthcare automation company Olive today announced it will shut down its business after selling its Clearinghouse and Patient Access business units to Waystar and its Prior Authorization business unit to Humata Health. Olive sold off its utilization management solution and business unit to Availity and business intelligence solution to BurstIQ earlier this year.

– Founded in 2012, Olive is a developer of an artificial intelligence workforce, automated revenue cycle and claims management for the healthcare industry. The company secured over $900M in funding reaching a $4B valuation. Olive’s enterprise AI has been implemented at more than 900 hospitals across 40 U.S. states, including more than 20 of the top 100 U.S. health systems.

What You Should Know: 

– Vizient acquires PrefTech OR, a next-generation, cloud-based preference card management (PCM) software that helps healthcare providers optimize their operating rooms to increase workflow efficiency, lower costs and improve patient care. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

– PrefTech OR continuously monitors preference card quality, automatically generates actionable guidance and identifies savings opportunities. 

Importance of Physician Preference Cards

Operating rooms are among hospitals’ largest cost centers, and they also generate more than 50% of their annual revenue. Physician preference cards are an essential part of every surgical service department as they contain detailed information about each surgeon’s preferences for medical supplies, instruments and room set up for surgery. Inaccurate information can result in improper room setups that create supply waste, increase labor costs and delay patient care. 

 A physician preference card solution is critical for capturing unique data sets in the perioperative setting across all types of providers. The acquisition supports Vizient’s strategy to advance a comprehensive Spend Management approach. In addition, the acquisition will help providers identify opportunities to reduce clinical variation across similar procedures and create operational efficiencies, leading to fewer wasted supplies and room set up delays, greater billing accuracy and opportunities for standardization across procedures, all of which can improve clinical outcomes and revenue.

What You Should Know:

– United Therapeutics Corporation and Miromatrix Medical Inc. announced today a definitive agreement for United Therapeutics to acquire Miromatrix for $91M.

– The acquisition of Miromatrix will expand United Therapeutics’ existing complementary platform of organ manufacturing programs, which include ex-vivo lung perfusion, xenotransplantation, 3-D bioprinting, and regenerative medicine approaches with the objective of creating an unlimited supply of tolerable, transplantable organs.

Miromatrix Background

Miromatrix is a life sciences company focused on the development of bioengineered organs composed of human cells. United Therapeutics is a biotechnology company with six FDA-approved therapies to address rare, life-threatening conditions, and a pipeline that includes four ongoing registration-phase studies.

Financial Terms

Under terms of the deal, United Therapeutics will acquire all outstanding shares of Miromatrix for a purchase price of $3.25 per share in cash at closing (an aggregate of approximately $91M) and an additional $1.75 per share in cash upon the achievement of a clinical development milestone related to Miromatrix’s development-stage, fully-implantable manufactured kidney product known as mirokidney™ by December 31, 2025.

What You Should Know: 

– Patient-centered health data company PicnicHealth today announced it has acquired AllStripes, a healthcare technology company dedicated to unlocking new treatments for people with rare diseases. Financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

– Founded in 2017,  AllStripes has developed a technology platform that generates research-ready evidence to accelerate rare disease research and drug development, as well as a patient application that empowers patients and families to securely participate in treatment research online and benefit from their own medical data.

Harness the Power of Patient Data to Support Biomedical Research

PicnicHealth engages directly with patients to collect and curate comprehensive clinical data and patient-reported outcomes (PROs) to generate rich insights across patient healthcare journeys. Historically, generating such evidence has required the establishment of a network of clinical sites, which are expensive to operate, burdensome to patients and sites, and often lead to delays. PicnicHealth and AllStripes pioneered a new model by working directly with patients, which enables a deeper view of each patient’s health and experience while reducing the challenges of traditional site-based studies. With AllStripes’ strong relationships across patient communities, PicnicHealth expands its footprint and enhances its ability to guide critical and deep evidence generation. 

This acquisition will enable PicnicHealth to curate rich clinical data sets and patient-reported outcomes data to enhance offerings across a broader range of diseases and better serve diverse biopharma customers’ evidence-generation needs, including both clinical research and registry development.

“Through this acquisition, PicnicHealth will be able to better engage our patient community by incorporating the best of AllStripes’ patient experience into the PicnicHealth platform,” said Noga Leviner, CEO of PicnicHealth. “AllStripes and PicnicHealth share a common vision of elevating clinical studies by putting patients at the core of the research experience. By combining forces, we can unlock the potential of patient-centered studies and provide best-in-class solutions to support therapeutic development.”

What You Should Know:

OptimizeRx, a provider of healthcare technology solutions announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Scottsdale, Arizona-based Healthy Offers, Inc., dba Medicx Health, a healthcare consumer-focused omnichannel marketing and analytics company.  

– OptimizeRx will acquire Medicx for $95M, and certain members of Medicx’s management plan to invest approximately $10.5M of their proceeds into the Company’s common stock. The cash component of the acquisition is being funded from OptimizeRx’s existing cash and short-term investments and from the proceeds of a new $40M credit facility provided by Blue Torch Capital. Following the transaction, OptimizeRx will have approximately $12.5M in cash and short-term equivalents available.

Acquisition Expand OptimizeRx’s Omnichannel Reach to Consumers

The acquisition of Medicx further advances OptimizeRx’s mission to create a more informed and empowered healthcare community using new technology solutions. The addition of the Medicx patient and HCP-focused Micro-Neighborhood® Targeting Platform, built on its MX# advanced identity resolution technology, to OptimizeRx’s HCP-focused Dynamic Audience Activation Platform (DAAP) is expected to provide a single source of innovative technologies that will enhance the reach and efficacy of healthcare marketing for life sciences organizations.

Other benefits include:

– Positions in Key Growth Area: As part of OptimizeRx, Medicx technology and analytics solutions is expected to expand OptimizeRx’s addressable footprint in life science commercial digital budgets, a business area that is forecasted to grow 15% to 20% per year, and further enhance the Company’s position as a leading player in the digital pharma marketing landscape.

– Expands Landing Pads: The combined companies’ partnerships encompass most major and emerging media outlets leveraged by healthcare marketers, including advanced tv, programmatic digital display and video, social, digital radio, and digital point-of-care such as electronic health record (EHR), e-Prescribing, and telehealth platforms.

– Unlocks Value for Customers: In particular, fast-growing specialty brands looking to educate increasingly specific audiences of patients and HCPs will now be able to link the execution of HCP and consumer marketing strategies together into a truly customer-centric marketing ecosystem. We plan to initially focus the operational integration of the combined companies on the top three areas where clients are looking for long-term partners: new product launch support, increased reach to both HCPs and patients, and sustaining adherence.

– Significant Financial Benefits: Medicx is a highly profitable company that is expected to contribute meaningfully to revenue, revenue growth, EBITDA and earnings per share. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to earnings and on a combined basis will have a revenue run-rate approaching $100M.

“Our acquisition of Medicx is expected to be a major business accelerator for us as it encompasses all three of our growth drivers: expanding our audience, introducing new solutions, significantly opening client penetration and growth opportunities,” said Will Febbo, Chief Executive Officer, OptimizeRx. “Moreover, Medicx has a very healthy financial profile and we believe this acquisition will be transformative to our growth and profitability.”

What You Should Know: 

– More than one-third of hospital and health system transactions announced in Q3 2023 involved a  party that cited financial distress as a transaction driver, according to Kaufman Hall’s latest mergers and acquisitions (M&A) report. The reports reveal third quarter M&A activity remained high with 18 announced transactions resulting in $8.2B in total transacted revenue.

– Kaufman Hall experts say transaction activity is regaining momentum as hospitals, health systems, and other healthcare organizations seek new alliances, partnerships, and ultimately, long-term financial sustainability. 

– Despite only one “mega-merger” transaction—in which the smaller party has annual revenues above $1 billion—Q3 average seller size and total transacted revenue remain above historical levels.

Other key findings from the report include: 

– Not-for-profit health systems were the acquiring or larger party in 14 of Q3’s 18 announced transactions, with for-profit systems acting as the acquiring party in the remaining four transactions. 

– Of the 14 not-for-profit acquirers, seven were academic/university-affiliated organizations (see discussion below) and one was a religiously affiliated organization. 

– The four transactions in which a for-profit system acted as acquirer focused primarily on smaller, financially distressed organizations: three of the four acquired organizations were financially distressed.

What You Should Know: 

– WellSky, a health and community care technology company, announced it has acquired Corridor, an end-to-end tech-enabled services platform for the post-acute care industry, from HealthEdge Investment Partners. Financial detials of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

– By adding Corridor to its portfolio, WellSky will expand its medical coding and revenue cycle management (RCM) offerings to help care providers increase efficiency and improve performance across clinical, financial, operational, and compliance areas.

Corridor Background

Founded in 1989, The Corridor Group Holdings, LLC (Corridor) is a leading provider of technology-enabled outsourced coding, revenue cycle and education solutions to the post-acute healthcare industry. Corridor has a proven track record as a leading tech-enabled services partner to post-acute providers, serving more than 2,600 client sites and supporting more than 52,000 clinicians. 

Post-Acquisition Plans

Given the increasingly complex and frequently changing regulations that complicate coding and billing processes, healthcare organizations are turning to trusted and experienced coding and RCM providers who can increase productivity and help ensure accurate reimbursement. 

The acquisition of Corridor allows WellSky to strengthen its position in home health coding and RCM and move into the skilled nursing facility billing business. 

As part of the acquisition, Corridor CEO Des Varady is staying on to lead the Corridor team, along with the Corridor leadership team, who will integrate with WellSky as they evolve and invest in the future of tech-enabled services. Corridor’s deep industry expertise in billing and financials, workforce issues, and medical coding complements WellSky’s aim to deliver innovative solutions that power providers’ success. Corridor clients will soon be able to leverage WellSky’s robust analytics, care coordination, patient engagement, interoperability, and EHR solutions to enhance care quality and better position clients for success with value-based care models.

What You Should Know: 

– Access Healthcare, a provider of revenue cycle management (RCM) and healthcare services, announced the acquisition of Envera Health, a market leader in patient engagement services. 

– This acquisition, a testament to Access Healthcare’s focus on providing innovative and superior revenue cycle solutions, broadens its service portfolio to include enhanced patient engagement capabilities.

Acquisition Stregthens Access Healthcare’s RCM Services

By leveraging Envera’s patient engagement capabilities, Access Healthcare will strengthen its end-to-end RCM services delivery and further enhance its proprietary workflows and process intelligence platform. This unique combination will deliver progressively improved outcomes to customers. With delivery capabilities across upstream and downstream processes, Access Healthcare is uniquely positioned to unlock insights derived from operational processes to prevent claim denials, maximize collections, and enhance the overall patient experience.

What You Should Know: 

– Today at HLTH, Evernorth Health Services announced the acquisition of technology and clinical capabilities of Bright.md, a leader in asynchronous care, triage, and healthcare navigation services to enhance MDLIVE’s virtual care

– By using asynchronous technologies to allow patients to initiate care on their terms, without the need for real-time clinician interactions, the integration provides patients with convenient access to care while reducing costs and improving health outcomes.

Post-Acquisition Plans

As part of the acquisition, MDLIVE will initially begin to offer this within its virtual urgent care platform to clients and patients in 2024 for a wide range of prevalent conditions that make up more than half of urgent and primary care visits, such as rashes, urinary tract infections, and pink eye, and will later expand to support chronic disease management and wellness visits over time.MDLIVE is also enhancing its virtual primary care service to include health coaching for patients with chronic conditions. The health coaching program, powered by Welldoc^®, is physician-prescribed and integrated into MDLIVE virtual primary care, enabling providers to keep patients engaged and supported in between visits and help manage lifestyle changes, such as weight management, healthy eating, physical activity, and sleep management.

What You Should Know: 

– Netsmart announced it has acquired  Netalytics, a South Carolina-based addiction treatment software and practice management company, dedicated to developing technology for substance use disorder (SUD) providers focused on opioid addiction treatment. 

– This acquisition will further extend the Netsmart CareFabric platform by enabling interoperable data sharing between opioid treatment program (OTP) facilities and the providers that treat and coordinate other types of care for individuals with SUD. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed. 

Netalytics Background

Netalytics was founded in 1995 by building a custom methadone software application for one clinic in Georgia and has grown by partnering with physicians and addiction specialists to develop solutions that address the unique workflows of providers serving the SUD market. Netalytics plans to enhance the Methasoft+SMART electronic health records (EHRs) with its integration into the Netsmart CareFabric platform with digitized, real-time referrals, patient health record history and alerts. 

As part of the acquisition, Netalytics clients will continue to experience the support they receive today, as well as improved care delivery through additional value-added offerings such as e-prescribing,  telehealth, healthcare information exchange (HIE) integration, patient engagement solutions,  reimbursement automation and analytics. 

What You Should Know: 

– The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) today announced that it acquired HCPro and its associated brands from Simplify Compliance. The strategic acquisition broadens the reach of both organizations.  

– AHIMA will operate HCPro as a for-profit, wholly-owned subsidiary, enabling the organization to remain focused on caring for its clients.  

HCPro Background

HCPro is an industry leader in integrated information, education, training, and consulting products and services in healthcare compliance and revenue cycle management. HCPro provides education solutions designed to help healthcare organizations deliver consistent training, achieve compliance, and maximize efficiencies across the revenue cycle, resulting in measurable clinical, quality, and financial improvements. The HCPro family of brands includes DecisionHealth, Association for Clinical Documentation Integrity Specialists (ACDIS), National Association for Healthcare Revenue Integrity (NAHRI), and the Association of Home Care Coding & Compliance (AHCC).  

What You Should Know: 

– Tendo, a digital health company committed to creating seamless healthcare experiences for patients, clinicians, and caregivers announced it has acquired MDsave, a leading healthcare marketplace that democratizes care access for all for $150M

– The strategic acquisition extends Tendo’s platform and applications to include MDsave’s marketplace, enabling patients to easily seek, schedule, pay for, and manage healthcare with transparent pricing through one solution. The transaction is expected to close in October.

Acquisition Creates Platform for Patient Engagement and Shoppable Care

The healthcare model in America is at its knees, but this desperation is giving rise to newfound creativity and innovation. For instance, 65% of covered workers are in novel plans that are self-funded by their employers. However a new Health Affairs study found self-insured employers are getting hosed on health care prices (even though the whole point of self-insuring is based on a theory of saving money). Tendo’s strategic acquisition of MDSave helps self-insured employers by delivering a better way to find and consume high-quality, affordable healthcare, while also offering providers the opportunity to increase volume and improve financial health. In the end, patients benefit most.

Tendo’s acquisition creates the most comprehensive national coverage of healthcare systems over 350 hospitals (including such leaders as Intermountain, Adventist, Community Health Systems, and Northwestern) across 3,500+ locations across the U.S. and inclusive of over 40 medical areas covering general care, specialty care, surgical, and imaging. 

“Patients, caregivers, employers, and navigators need easier ways of discovering and consuming high-quality, cost-effective healthcare,” said Dan Goldsmith, CEO of Tendo. “Together, MDsave and Tendo will create the first end-to-end solution for seeking, scheduling, engaging, paying for, and managing care.”

What You Should Know: 

– Virgin Pulse, a global digital-first health, wellbeing, and navigation company announced its intent to merge with HealthComp, a next-generation benefits and analytics platform valued at $3B. 

The blockbuster merger will create a technology and data-powered health platform-as-a-service organization poised to tackle some of the industry’s biggest challenges. Together, the combined entity will aim to improve health outcomes and lower costs for members and employers by empowering better information and decision-making. 

– Chris Michalak will serve as CEO of the combined entity, where he will continue building upon the Homebase for Health vision and expanding the value proposition for clients and the market at large.

Mergers Creates Comprehensive Employer Health Platform

As the healthcare industry evolves, the desire for an integrated experience in the employer-sponsored benefits ecosystem has grown exponentially. This combination will create a set of assets that will integrate plan design, plan management, payment integrity, health navigation, preventative care, and digital therapeutics through the Homebase for Health® user-centric platform. Together, the combined entity expects these assets will create a better experience and lower costs for members and employers, while providing expanded opportunities for insurers and brokers to continue to partner with the combined entity.

Flexible Health Plan Designs

By using an advanced technology and data platform that leverages AI, the combined organization will deploy innovative and flexible health plan designs that drive improved member health outcomes, engagement, and awareness across the most important aspects of a person’s healthcare journey.

Merger Enhanced Footprint

The combined entity will serve more than 20 million members and address costs for more than 1,000 self-insured employers. HealthComp’s powerful analytics will also benefit Virgin Pulse’s health plan and health system clients by providing closed-loop data on health outcomes and the true ROI of investing in member experience and wellbeing programs. The merger is expected to close in Q4 2023, subject to regulatory approvals and satisfaction of all closing conditions under the definitive agreement.