HHS appoints Susannah Fox as CTO: Just two weeks after our last hiring roundup, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that it had appointed longtime patient advocate and Pew Research alum Susannah Fox as its new CTO. Fox has also been an early and important voice in the emerging mobile and digital health. Her team's work at Pew helped ground the mobile health discussion with...
After weeks of rumors, this morning health insurance company Aetna announced that it is acquiring rival Humana for $36 billion in cash and stock. The news follows smaller health insurance company Centene's $6.3 billion plan to acquire health insurance company Health Net, which would make that company the biggest private administrator of Medicaid programs in the US. Aetna's absorption of Humana...
At the beginning of 2015, CMS began reimbursing physicians for the care they provide to a particular group of their Medicare patients remotely and between visits. This new billing code, called Chronic Care Management (CCM), required that this remote care meet a few criteria, like patients must have two or more chronic conditions; the physician must establish a comprehensive care plan for the...
Earlier this month a small MedPanel survey of 415 physicians practicing in the US reportedly found that a very small percentage of them -- just 15 percent -- were discussing health apps or wearables with their patients. After reviewing the raw survey results, however, it's clear the company's press release misstated its survey's findings. (The company has since corrected and updated it).
One...
The first six months of 2015 have been chock-full of digital health news. What follows is an exhaustive recap of the first half of the year with links to MobiHealthNews coverage of notable events throughout. If you'd prefer to navigate to a particular section, here's where you can find our digital health news round-up section for payor news, pharma news, government and regulatory news, mergers...
The first six months of 2015 have brought with them a pair of high-profile, digital health IPO announcements, a half dozen or more important policy moves, at least one new promising reimbursement code, and plenty of new health initiatives from the world's largest technology companies. There hasn't been a newsier six months in digital health's short history.
That's why there's no better way to...
Fitbit Surge
This morning San Francisco-based Fitbit debuted its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange after increasing the price of its shares to $20 apiece: The IPO raised $732 million, making it the biggest consumer electronics IPO in history, according to Dealogica.
The stock began trading on the NYSE above $30 a share. According to CNBC, the average Fitbit insider,...
During Apple's recent World Wide Developer Conference an iOS Software Engineer named Shannon Tan gave a presentation for developers that discussed the new features added to HealthKit as part of the iOS 9 launch. As part of her presentation Tan provided additional perspective on Apple's recent forays into health as well as its decision-making process for how it chooses which new tracking fields to...
Gwen Hines, RN, Practice Administrator, Atlantic Adult & Pediatric Medicine, an Aledade partner
Bethesda, Maryland-based, tech-enabled accountable care company, Aledade, has raised $30 million in venture funding led by return backer ARCH Venture Partners with participation from its other existing investor Venrock. The company raised $4.5 million in its first round last summer, which is...
This week the American Medical Association’s ethics council attempted to come to an agreement over a set of guidelines focused on ethical considerations related to the use of online or mobile visits between patients and physicians, but a physician from Texas helped convince the committee to rethink its plans. The guidelines were tabled and sent back to committee for further review. The earliest...
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