Health Current’s CIO Keith Parker and IMO’s Chief Strategy Officer Dale Sanders discuss big data management in healthcare: challenges and lessons learned.

UnitedHealthcare institutes policy allowing it to retroactively deny ED claims; Apple unveils walking stability assessments in iPhone update . Also: Mount Sinai Health System teams with Caregility and Language Line to help cater to patients with limited English proficiency.

Links to the stories:

UnitedHealthcare looks to retroactively deny emergency room claims

Apple adds walking stability, family and provider health sharing, and more at WWDC 2021

Mount Sinai eases translation in 200 languages through its Epic telehealth platform

These days, insuretech is its own burgeoning startup ecosystem. But in 2012, a startup elbowing into a space dominated by big longterm players like United, Humana, Cigna, and the Blues was audacious and unheard of. Enter Oscar Health, the health insurance startup that’s been pushing the envelope, exploring ways technology can improve the experience. For today's HIMSSCast, Oscar CEO Mario Schlosser joins host Jonah Comstock and Healthcare Finance News Managing Editor Susan Morse to tell his story and answer some questions about the company's latest moves. Along the way we discuss telehealth, value-based care, and more.

Be sure to check out Mario next week at the HIMSS State of Healthcare event on June 15th, where he'll represent the payer perspective on a panel of healthcare experts.

Talking points:

• What makes Oscar’s full-stack approach to technology different
• Differentiators: Automation, virtual primary care, +Oscar
• Major factors driving trends in healthcare
• How COVID boosted the virtual primary care business
• How Oscar overcame (and overcomes) healthcare’s first-mover curse
• ‘Shifting the battlefield” toward value-based care
• Driving Oscar towards profitability
• Oscar’s relationship with Cigna, and with other payers
• Moving toward the frontier of risk-based payments
• Why telemedicine and value-based care need each other
• The Catch-22 of risk-sharing in healthcare
• The emerging “orthogonal” healthcare system
• The last mile in telehealth
• Increasing provider interest in being in the health plan business

More about this episode:

With $400M injection, tech-savvy health insurer Oscar eyes 1M member mark (from 2016)

Alphabet's $375 million in Oscar Health will expand insurer into Medicare Advantage business (from 2018)

Oscar's new program aims to give providers and third-party payors access to its tech-backed insurance platform

Cigna, Oscar plan to expand affordable coverage for small businesses in Connecticut

Oscar launches no-cost virtual primary care in planned 2021 expansion

Tech-minded insurance company Oscar Health announces IPO

Health insuretech company Oscar scores $225M in new funding

Oscar lands $140M more as it prepares to scale in 2021

Eugene Borukhovich, COO of YourCoach, former global head of digital health at Bayer, and co-host of the podcast "A Shot of Digital Health Therapy", joins HIMSSCast for a wide-ranging discussion about his career and his unique perspective on digital health and health innovation. Be sure to check out host Jonah Comstock's appearance on Eugene's podcast as well.

Talking points:

• YourCoach: Applying digital health ideas to health coaching
• How the business of YourCoach came together
• Missing pieces in the healthcare picture
• Eugene’s experience in pharma and how it set him up for the entrepreneur world
• Doing things better versus doing better things
• Lessons learned from the health accelerator space
• Eugene’s book-in-progress “Hard Pill to Swallow”
• The health tech podcast experience
• Eugene’s thoughts on the current funding boom
• Thoughts about the term "patient engagement"

More about this episode:

YourCoach looks to employer space with new version of wellness platform

With many regulatory barriers clear, remaining roadblocks for digital therapeutics are cultural, logistical

Bayer plans launch of US accelerator focused on self care markets

Digital health completes a record-breaking first quarter driven by mega deals

Hard Pill to Swallow on Substack

President Joe Biden’s proposed 2022 budget includes funds set aside for healthcare, including health IT infrastructure and the Strategic National Stockpile. Plus: A new digital health accelerator with a focus on pharma.

Links to the stories:

HHS: Biden's FY22 budget will invest in pandemic preparedness, expanding affordable care

Biden's $6T budget includes cybersecurity, broadband infrastructure

New accelerator aims to help pharma and digital health companies get on the same page

Is losing your mental faculties just a part of getting older? In his new book, Dr. Charles Alessi, HIMSS Chief Clinical Officer, says no. Host Jonah Comstock welcomes Dr. Alessi to discuss "Increase Your Brainability — and Reduce Your Risk of Dementia", his recently published book with co-authors Larry Chambers and Sir Muir Gray.

Talking points

• Why write this book now? 
• Reducing the mystery and misinformation about dementia
• Dr. Alessi’s co-authors, Muir Gray and Larry Chambers
• Misconceptions about dementia and inevitability
• New technology addressing cognitive decline
• Resilience and neural plasticity
• Other things people can do to stave off cognitive decline
• Questioning the inevitability of aging
• The digital divide and the importance of designing products for older people
• The link between mental and physical health

More about this episode

Order the book

Improving education levels, heart health trigger decline in dementia prevalence, JAMA study says

Clinical trial explores whether video conversations can prevent dementia in isolated seniors

Newly launched, Brain U Online aims to stymie dementia in aging consumers

InterSystems, Cognetivity partner on early dementia detection

Hospital financial performance beginning to improve, though there’s still a long road ahead; Google helps fund new data platform that highlights COVID-19 impacts on marginalize communities . Plus: FBI warns of Conti ransomware attacks on healthcare and first responder networks.

Links to the stories:

Hospitals saw gains in volume, revenue and margin in April, finds Kaufman Hall

Google rolls out Health Equity Tracker platform, highlighting disparities between communities

FBI warns of Conti ransomware attacks targeting U.S. healthcare networks

In this very special episode of HIMSSCast, host Jonah Comstock welcomes his mother Carol Hornbeck, a marriage and family therapist in Minneapolis, and her colleague Edwin Shurig, a mental health counselor in Indianapolis. Along with Healthcare IT News Senior Editor Kat Jercich, we discuss what it was like for small practices and independent therapists to make the sudden move to telehealth in the face of COVID-19 — and how the experience will shape the future of their practice.

This podcast is brought to you by OnTrak. 

Talking points

• Edwin and Carol’s telehealth experiences prior to the pandemic
• Which telehealth tools helped with the transition
• Pros and cons of teletherapy
• Telehealth: Great for couples, tough for kids
• Going beyond telehealth: apps in the session room
• Therapeutic applications of fitness apps and trackers 
• Thoughts on teletherapy startups
• The importance of therapists connecting to each other
• Regulatory challenges of teletherapy— especially licensure
• How Edwin and Carol will use telehealth going forward
• Payment parity and reimbursement challenges
• Advice for telehealth tech vendors

More about this episode

The Virtual Care Paradigm Episode 1

The Virtual Care Paradigm Episode 2

Carol on "Talking Your Way to Change"

COVID-19 ratcheting up demand for virtual behavioral healthcare, Cigna finds

Telehealth use on rise for behavioral health

Now is the time for providers to be proactive about telehealth

Teladoc Health data shows virtual mental healthcare boom

Angel Mena, MD, and Steven Rube, MD, discuss the challenges of managing and sharing patient data post-pandemic and lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis. 

Merging clinical, technical and data realms to capture and share patient data most effectively has been ramping up quickly during the pandemic, according to Steven Rube, MD, Senior Vice President, Global Clinical Services, IMO. He and Angel Mena, MD, Adult Medicine Physician, TriHealth, and  CMIO of Clinician Collaboration Platform, Halo Health, share their expertise on adapting technology to the clinical world in this podcast.

Specifically, Mena and Rube talk about:

• The impact of the pandemic on provider organizations' access to patient data
• How technology can overcome bottlenecks to patient data access
• Lessons learned to ensure accessing complete picture of patients post-pandemic

The first technology-enabled remote clinical trial was launched nearly a decade ago, and that field — now generally referred to as "decentralized clinical trials" — has been advancing and gaining traction ever since. But, like so many other remote tools, it's been greatly accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

On today's HIMSSCast, host Jonah Comstock and MobiHealthNews Managing Editor Laura Lovett welcome John Reites, CEO and cofounder of THREAD Research, to give us an update on where this new paradigm for clinical trials is today, and where it's headed.

Talking points:

• The effect of the pandemic on decentralized clinical trials
• Reconciling cultural differences between pharma and tech
• How vaccine trials are their own animal
• How decentralized trials can help improve clinical trial diversity
• The role of consumer wearables in clinical trials today
• Why clinical trial innovation must be global
• How physicians, researchers, and patients are responding to new clinical trial models
• What everyone should know about decentralized clinical trials

More about this episode:

THREAD Research

That Apple video

Trials and tribulations – the new world of decentralized trials

Spurred by the pandemic, AI is driving decentralized clinical trials

Virtual clinical research company Thread acquired by two private equity firms

Exo raises $40M for handheld ultrasound; decentralized trial platforms raise nearly $100M; and more digital health funding news

Current Health launches decentralized clinical trial initiative

Decentralized clinical trial startup Florence lands $80M for company growth

Labcorp updates its clinical trial process with a technology-enabled platform

The year for mobile-enabled clinical trials: 2013 or 2030? (Throwback #1)

ResearchKit update: Notes from the field on trial retention, Android integration, and more (Throwback #2)