All Posts By

Kevin Roche

The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry through Roche Consulting, LLC. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.

Sep 22 2014

Aon Hewitt offers a private insurance exchange to clients and claims that the 18 companies covering 600,000 people who are users are experiencing lower health care spending.  The firm says that health costs are projected to grow 3.5% in 2015 for these users, compared to industry-wide estimates of 6.5% to 8% increases.  But it appears that the "savings" are due largely to enrollees choosing less-rich benefit designs, which means they were paying more for their health care out-of-pocket.

http://aon.mediaroom.com/2014-09-18-Aon-Hewitt-Shows-Continued-Cost-Savings-for-Companies-and-Individuals-Participating-in-the-Aon-Active-Health-Exchange
Sep 19 2014

Leading Medicare Advantage patient health status assessment firm Matrix Health is being acquired by Providence Service Corporation for $400 million.  Providence provides a variety of health and non-health services to governments.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/providence-service-corporation-agrees-to-acquire-matrix-medical-network---the-leading-national-provider-of-in-home-health-assessment-and-care-management-services-275578751.html
Sep 18 2014

Chartspan gathered $1 million in new financing for its mobile patient medical record.

http://medcitynews.com/2014/09/chartspan-raises-1m-to-expand-patient-medical-records-app/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1b752e55ba-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c05cce483a-1b752e55ba-67677117
Sep 18 2014

Optimum Medical Management has been acquired by PracticeMax.  Optimum is a vendor of billing and practice management services in Nebraska and PracticeMax provides similar services nationally.

http://www.sandlotsolutions.com/news-releases/2014/09/08/sandlot-solutions-raises-233-million-funding-led-lemhi-ventures
Sep 18 2014

Sandlot Solutions, which provides software to facilitate health information exchange, population health and EHR data interoperability, has raised $23.3 million.

http://www.sandlotsolutions.com/news-releases/2014/09/08/sandlot-solutions-raises-233-million-funding-led-lemhi-ventures
Sep 17 2014

RightCare, whose software helps identify patient needs at time of hospital admission and development of discharge plans, has gotten $4 million more in capital.

http://www.buckscountycouriertimes.com/business/horsham-s-rightcare-gets-additional-capital-investment/article_3130f984-b0c8-52d9-ae50-05b2b4738690.html
Sep 17 2014

Privia Health has secured an unbelievable $400 million in new financing for its business of providing practice and population health management tools to providers.

http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20140916/NEWS/309169943?AllowView=VDl3UXk1T3dDL0tCbkJiYkY0M3hlMHFvaVVVZER1VT0=&utm_source=link-20140916-NEWS-309169943&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=hits&utm_name=top#
Sep 17 2014

Wound management firm RestorixHealth has acquired another wound management company, Paradigm Medical Management.

http://www.pehub.com/2014/09/pe-backed-restorixhealth-buys-paradigm/
Sep 16 2014

An Avalere study finds that very low numbers of Medicare beneficiaries who are supposed to be getting MTM services are actually receiving them.

http://avalere.com/expertise/managed-care/insights/few-medicare-beneficiaries-receive-comprehensive-medication-management-serv
Sep 16 2014

According to a study from UnitedHealth Group, members who used its price transparency and provider rating tools were more likely to select high-quality, low-cost providers.

http://www.uhc.com/live/uhc_com/Assets/Documents/myHCEwhitepaper.pdf
Sep 16 2014

A company promising to make health care billing easier for consumers to deal with, iVinci Health, has raised $5 million.

http://medcitynews.com/2014/09/startup-ivinci-raises-5m-make-healthcare-billing-consumer-friendly/?utm_source=MedCity+News+Subscribers&utm_campaign=7cb9a19660-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c05cce483a-7cb9a19660-67648197