Weekly Health Tech Reads 6/8/25

👋 Hey all! Kevin here. Welcome to this edition of my free weekly newsletter, where I discuss the key healthcare innovation news from the past week.

This week’s edition is only being posted to our website, although I anticipate we’ll be back to sending to your inbox next week (or maybe the following). Omada’s IPO was the big positive news of the week, marketing the second successful health tech public offering over in past few weeks. In the Medicare Advantage market, the challenging headwinds continue as Congress potentially seeks to cut upcoding in an effort to past the big beautiful bill. It seems as though change is inevitable there, but, as always, it’ll be curious to watch how the political process plays out from here.

Happy Sunday!

Kevin

Other Top Headlines

• CMS hosted an in-person listening session this week, discussing its recently released RFI. CMS shared it plans to move forward five key initiatives, which includes an interoperable national provider directory among other efforts. This quote from Brendan Keeler in the Endpoints newsletter on Thursday seems to sum up the energy well: “It was frantic, last-minute, and rough around the edges — and all those things sound negative, but they’re not,” attendee Brendan Keeler, who leads the interoperability practice at consultancy HTD Health, told me. “To me, it was like, this is what they’re going to do the entire administration, which is not wait for perfection and full consensus to make progress because they realize alignment is fleeting.”

• While annual shareholder meetings usually include very little in terms of interesting strategic business updates, UHG’s meeting on Monday was notable as it marked Steven Hemsley’s second time speaking to investors publicly after returning to the CEO role. It’s worth paying attention to the comments he made about how the organization is seeking to earn back the trust and confidence of investors. Specifically, Hemsley called out two core efforts around improving UHC’s pricing discipline and driving consistent performance at Optum Health, while also recognizing that UHG is implementing a review of all practices and processes around risk assessment, managed care practices, and pharmacy services.

• Per Bloomberg, Ascension is in advanced talks to acquire AmSurg for $3.9 billion. AmSurg operates 250 ambulatory surgery centers, after emerging from the Envision Healthcare bankruptcy in 2023. AmSurg purchased the 250 ASCs from Envision as part of that restructuring process for $300 million plus a waiver of intercompany loans. Envision previously was acquired by private equity firm KKR in 2018 via a leveraged buyout that valued the Envision business at $9.9 billion.

• Data analytics platform H1 announced the acquisition of Veda Data Solutions, a provider data platform. Both Veda and H1’s recent acquisition of Ribbon will expand H1’s capabilities supporting health plans in managing provider information. Veda had raised $45 million Health acquired Veda as it continues to build out its data automation solutions - financials of acquisition were not disclosed (that I can see). Veda had raised $53 million in capital, including a $45 million Series B led by Oak HC/FT in 2021.

• Hims & Hers announced it is acquiring ZAVA, a telehealth platform with 1.3+ million customers primarily in Europe. It’s a 100% cash acquisition funded by Hims cash on hand, and Hims expects the deal to be accretive in 2026.

• Quantum Health announced it is acquiring Embold Health. Embold will expand Quantum’s AI product offering for employee health benefits navigation.

• Pyx Health announced the purchase of FarmboxRx, along with a $47.5 million strategic investment it used to fund the purchase.

• Sutter Health received a $110 million gift, the largest in the history of the health system, which it will use to expand access in Northern California.

• Aveanna Healthcare acquired Thrive Skilled Pediatric Care for $75 million. Thrive offers pediatric home care services across 23 locations in seven states.

• JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) partnered with OpenEvidence for all JAMA content to be used to inform answers on the OpenEvidence platform.

Stat of the Week

10.9 million
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report estimating that 10.9 million Americans would become uninsured over the next decade, primarily due to Medicaid and ACA cuts.

Chart of the Week

Marathon Health makes the case in a new white paper that its Advanced Primary Care model drives claims savings in year 1, and a 3.7x return on investment by year 5, as seen in the chart below:

Long time readers of HTN will remember that I’m pretty skeptical these savings are actually there in commercial models, but interesting to look at the case Marathon makes here nonetheless. If employers are indeed seeing these levels of savings from APC models, I’m not sure why every employer in America isn’t offering this to employees.

Funding Announcements

• MyLaurel announced earlier this week it raised $12 million from Deerfield and GV to grow its hospital-at-home program, with the press release noting that this capital will support expansion via its partnership with Oschner and also growing in other existing and new markets.

  • It's interesting to see this news coming on the heels of Best Buy’s earnings report the other day about needing to restructure the Current Health business given the challenges around slow provider partnership growth. It would seem given this funding that MyLaurel is seeing more success here; will be worth keeping an eye on how this market evolves.

• Canid, a vaccine management platform for pediatricians, raised $10 million.

• Aeon, a Swiss-based Ai-powered whole body MRI checkup, raised €8.2 million.

• ArcheHealth, an AI platform for hospital supply chain management, raised $6.7 million.

• Amperos Health, an AI billing platform helping providers with claims collection, raised $4.2 million in seed funding.

• Salvo Health, a digital health company focused on digestive and metabolic conditions, raised $4 million.

What I’m Reading

Chasing Big Money With the Health-Care Hustlers of South Florida by Zeke Faux and Zachary Mider
This Bloomberg article takes the cake for the wildest healthcare story I’ve read in 2025, and probably longer than that. It tells the story of the shenanigans that happen in the South Florida ACA broker market, focused on Enhance Health. As I shared in Slack this week, the most interesting part of this piece is the role that Bain Capital played in funding and launching this business. Seems like there were a lot of very bright red flags they missed along the way here. Read more

Medicare Site-Neutral Payment Policies: Effects Of Proposals On Hospitals And Beneficiary Groups by Multiple Authors
This article in Health Affairs looks at the effects of three different potential site-neutral payment policies, finding that annual Medicare payments could be reduced between $212 million to $7.36 billion, depending on the scope of the legislation. Read more

Make American Health Care Affordable Again by Larry Levitt
Levitt, KFF’s EVP for Health Policy, argues in JAMA Forum that the administration should spend more time addressing healthcare prices, in addition to the energy it is spending on MAHA, particularly with potential cuts to federal funding likely making healthcare less affordable for many in this country. Read more

Ambient Scribes: A Reasonable Bet, With Conditions by David Ohta
A clear-eyed view looking at the investment opportunity for AI scribes, why recent valuations might make sense as a wedge into adjacent opportunities, and some of the challenges ahead. Read more

Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic faces questions over booming subsidies by Mary Schladen
A good look at how the Cleveland Clinic has benefitted from the 340B program, highlighting how it received almost $1 billion between 2020 and 2023., according to this recent Senate committee report. Cleveland Clinic did not pass on any of those savings directly to patients because the statute doesn’t require that. Read more

The Dizzying Rise of MAHA Warrior Calley Means, RFK Jr.’s Right-Hand Man by Katherine Eban
A fascinating, and long, article in Vanity Fair exploring Calley Means’ rise to prominence driving the MAHA movement. Read more

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