Weekly Health Tech Reads 8/30/26

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Axios reported that the acquisition is for between $200 and $300 million in cash, a figure that seems disappointing relative to Headspace's previously reported $3 billion valuation after its 2021 merger with Ginger. At that time, Headspace and Ginger had reportedly raised a collective $436 million across the two businesses.

At the time of the Headspace/Ginger merger, it was intended to create a “powerhouse” that would provide a wide range of mental health services, from meditation to psychiatric care. At that time, Ginger had just raised $100 million from Blackstone at a $1 billion valuation, citing 3x revenue growth, 500 employer customers, and 10 million covered lives. Given what we’ve seen happen to the D2C mental health market with BetterHelp recently, it seems that Headspace's residual value today lies in Ginger and those B2B relationships it has built over the years.

For a nerd who started working in digital health circa ~2010, seeing Ginger.io ultimately join Sword Health after a sixteen-year journey is a fascinating twist of fate. For folks who haven’t gone deep on Ginger, it was one of the most interesting startups of that era, originally a research project at MIT’s Media Lab that passively collected smartphone usage data to infer changes in health status. When it first started, Ginger wasn’t even a mental health company; its first commercial efforts were in diabetes. Early investors, including Vinod Khosla, lauded Ginger as an opportunity to disrupt the traditional episodic healthcare system by democratizing access via technology that could make healthcare more preventative and longitudinal at essentially zero cost.

That general narrative sounds very familiar, as almost two decades later Sword talks about how it is leveraging AI to make healthcare access infinitely more scalable. As someone who tends to believe that history rhymes, the journeys that Ginger and Headspace have been on over the last fifteen-ish years seem indicative of the path we should expect for Sword, and how fleeting capital markets success can be, particularly when compared to the goal of democratizing healthcare.

A Health Affairs Forefront article by folks from Georgetown’s CHIR sparked the wrath of provider organizations on social media this week, which discussed how the No Surprises Act IDR process has resulted in $22.4 billion in costs, based on public use data CMS has shared. Radiology Partners, HaloMD, and Team Health were by far the three largest entities leveraging the IDR process in 2025, as highlighted by the growth in disputes in the chart below:

The article prompted a swift reaction from some provider organizations interested in the IDR process. The CEO of Radiology Partners took to LinkedIn, calling the article “shameful” while suggesting a bias toward payors. The American College of Radiology followed up with a blog post challenging the results. The general argument appears to be that payors are playing games with the QPA by either not submitting an offer at all or submitting an offer at a “ghost rate” of basically zero. The cited cost increases are based on the QPA, so theoretically the $22.4 billion increase is overstated, particularly given that the public use files appear to contain inaccurate data that overstates the amount of outlier awards.

While the $22.4 billion figure may not be entirely accurate, the swift reaction to this article indicates the strategic importance of the IDR process to these provider groups, suggesting that costs are indeed rising. Why else react so strongly to a Health Affairs Forefront paper analyzing public data from CMS? While payors and providers point fingers at each other, the only thing that becomes clear in all the finger-pointing is that neither party is blameless, while both complain about the Nash equilibrium that payor/provider negotiations seem to always land at.

I suppose one other thing that is becoming increasingly clear in this argument is that employers and employees are starting to feel the financial impact of the IDR process. As we discussed in last week's newsletter, the City of San Antonio is currently running $40 million over its $250 million annual healthcare budget due to the IDR process. The Health Affairs article also reports that the New York Department of Civil Service has incurred more than $200 million in additional claims and the United Service Workers Union has had to raise premiums by 1.75% , both a result of the IDR process.

I find it interesting that the pushback on the article doesn’t appear to address these points at all, as they ultimately seem to be the most telling data in the entire article. Regardless of payor/provider spats over QPAs or potential data errors, employers are clearly signaling that costs are going up as a result of this process. Depending on what side of the negotiating table you’re on, that is either because payors have historically underpaid providers, or because providers are gaming the IDR process to get paid more.

Either way, it seems unambiguous that the IDR is inflating healthcare costs. In a broader political climate where trust in the healthcare system is lower than ever, and affordability is the topic du jour, it seems like yet another scenario in which both parties end up looking bad in the eyes of the American public. This strikes me as particularly true here, especially given that more providers appear to be recognizing the strategic advantage of the IDR process, as evidenced by stories like San Antonio's about rapid cost increases. Around and around we go.

Doximity released results from an annual physician survey, which included 23,000 physicians in 2025. The report explores physician compensation trends and their views on AI adoption, among other things. Notably, when physicians were asked where financial value should accrue if AI helps them complete more work in the same amount of time, 44% of respondents suggested that value should go to physicians, versus 17% who think it should go to patients via lower costs.

Discussing provider pay is always a touchy subject, but nonetheless I think it is worth wading into here, particularly with the NSA discussion above about radiology practices ensuring appropriate payments. According to Doximity data, the average radiologist now earns $610k per year, with compensation increasing by 6.6% annually. Radiology is the eighth-highest-paid specialty and the ninth-fastest-growing in terms of compensation. Interventional radiology is even higher in both categories, as illustrated in the chart below:

For a profession that was reportedly going to be wiped out by AI and has lately been tussling with mischievous payors constantly underpaying them, at least if the NSA argument at face value, I scratch my head when I see that average compensation data. Perhaps I’m missing something here, but an average annual compensation of $610k strikes me as a pretty reasonable number for a profession. I find it fascinating to juxtapose this data with the American College of Radiology statement on the No Surprises Act, which complains about payors seeking drastic reimbursement cuts to radiology groups.

If insurers were cutting payments to radiologists, wouldn’t that mean radiologists would be receiving less compensation over that period? What gives? Around and around we go.

The chart below highlights the key takeaway from a recent study suggesting that tirzepatide users had $319 lower PPPM in healthcare costs after 12 to 18 months compared to a control cohort, excluding the cost of tirzepatide. Given that Medicare’s GLP-1 Bridge program costs $195 per month, the data here seem to offer a conceptual path to reducing healthcare costs via GLP-1s.

Health Tech Nerds and Ursa Health are hosting a dinner for senior leaders in value-based care Monday night, September 14th in Nashville. If you’re interested, let us know! Spots are limited.

We’ll be in town for Healthcare Sessions September 14th-15th. If you’re thinking about attending but haven’t registered, save $100 off with code HTNSESSIONS.

BranchLab, an AI platform for audience targeting and commercial intelligence in healthcare, is hiring for the following roles:

Director, Accelerator, Global Health at Gates Foundation, a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world.
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SVP, Clinical Quality & Population Health at Matter Health, delivering primary care to adults living in affordable housing communities.
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Vice President, Data at Gravie, a health benefits company offering ICHRA and level-funded plans for small and mid-sized employers.
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