Telehealth News - September 2020
Here's a recap of funding in digital health, the latest healthcare innovations, and trends in virtual care for September 2020.
Funding in Digital Health
Bright Health just raised $500 million and Oscar Health is reportedly eyeing an IPO. Here's a look at how the hot health insurance startups have fared this year.
In May, Oscar Health raised $225 million from investors including Alphabet and General Catalyst. The insurer is gearing up for a 2021 initial public offering, Axios reported. Bright Health in September said it raised an additional $500 million from investors including Tiger Global Management and T. Rowe Price Associates.
Read full story on Business Insider >
GoodRx raises $1.1B in IPO as it sell shares above target
Buoyed by strong demand for its stock, GoodRx raised $1.1 billion in its initial public offering after pricing its deal well above its expected price range. The GoodRx IPO began trading Wednesday at $46 per share, 39% above its $33 per share offering price. GoodRx stock rose above $49 per share in early afternoon action, Investors.com reported. That boosted the consumer healthcare technology firm's market cap to about $12.7 billion.
Read full story on Fierce Healthcare >
On-demand Healthcare Service, Ready, Raises $54 Million in Series C Financing
Ready, an on-demand healthcare service, today announced that it closed $54 million of new funding to finance the expansion of its operations and clinical programs that bring medical care directly to patients in their homes. GV, Deerfield Management Company, City Light Capital, Town Hall Ventures, Frist Cressey Ventures and others have invested over $100 million across two funding rounds in less than a year
Read full story on Yahoo News >
Carlyle leads $175 million investment round in healthcare firm Grand Rounds
Carlyle Group Inc CG.O said on Wednesday that it led a group of investors making a $175 million investment in Grand Rounds Inc, a digital healthcare company. The investment comes amid a surge in demand for telehealth services as coronavirus stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines forced doctors and patients to avoid in-person visits.
Latest Healthcare Innovations
Best Buy Health partnered with Amazon to launch a telehealth-enabled flip phone for seniors
Electronics retail giant Best Buy's health unit launched a new flip phone—dubbed LivelyFlip—that can integrate with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant and boasts telehealth features to connect seniors to on-demand providers, per Becker's Hospital Review. The phone's Amazon voice-powered tech enables seniors to make calls and send texts—in addition to the device's urgent call button, which links a user directly to 24/7 access to care teams at telehealth company GreatCall.
Read full story on Business Insider >
Sam's Club and 98point6 are partnering to offer members $1 telehealth visits
Sam's Club and virtual primary care provider 98point6 joined forces to offer Sam's Club members exclusive virtual care offerings, including $1 telehealth visits. As part of the tie-up, Sam's Club members with a Club or Plus membership can buy a quarterly subscription with an introductory fee of $20 for the first 3 months per participant, versus 98point6's typical sign-up fee of $30 per participant—in addition to offering $1 telehealth visits, with unlimited use, the subscription provides users with 24/7 access to US board-certified physicians.
Read full story on Business Insider >
Clinic Price Check has built a service to see if patients can save money by paying cash for procedures
Before launching Clinic Price Check, Joanne Rodrigues-Craig had been a stay-at-home mom with Master’s degrees in population demographics, political science, and applied mathematics from UC Berkeley and the London School of Economics. She’d written a book on demographics and politics, published work on data analysis for predictive customer insights, and, most recently, worked for Sony as a statistics manager. But when her daughter was sick with the flu and a trip to urgent care left Rodrigues-Craig with an $800 hospital bill, she found her entrepreneurial mission — figuring out why health care expenses were so high for some people who paid with insurance when the cash cost could be much lower.
Read full story on TechCrunch >
Movano closes $12.5M bridge financing round to transform glucose monitoring with non-invasive wearable technology
Movano is a stealth mode San Francisco Bay Area digital health startup that transforms glucose monitoring with its non-invasive wearable technology. Today, Movano announced it has closed its bridge round at $12.5 million to expand both internal and external testing efforts. The capital will also help accelerate the process of miniaturizing Movano’s technology into a single chip that can fit inside a wearable. After announcing $10M in bridge funding in July, the company raised an additional $2.5M to progress the development of its wearable non-invasive continuous glucose monitor.
Read full story on Tech Start Ups>
Trends in Virtual Care
HHS Plan to Improve Rural Health Focuses on Better Broadband, Telehealth Services
Knowing it may be met with some skepticism, the Trump administration Thursday announced a sweeping plan that officials say will transform health care in rural America. Even before the coronavirus pandemic reached into the nation’s less-populated regions, rural Americans were sicker, poorer, and older than the rest of the country. Hospitals are shuttering at record rates, and health care experts have long called for changes.
What we learned about the business of telemedicine from Amwell and GoodRx’s IPO filings
Last week, two virtual care providers filed paperwork to go public — offering an unprecedented window into the long-murky finances of telemedicine. The illuminating S-1 regulatory filings came from Boston-based telehealth provider Amwell and GoodRx, the Los Angeles-based prescription drug coupons company that last year acquired the telemedicine company HeyDoctor.
Read full story on Stat News >
How AI can Change the Future of Telemedicine
Artificial Intelligence and telemedicine are no more diverse. It has helped the digital health industry to emerge high from the scratch. This article outlines the various work areas of telemedicine and how Artificial Intelligence can change the life of healthcare systems even with challenges over the years.
Read full story on ReadWrite >
U.S. Telemedicine App Downloads Spikes During COVID-19 Pandemic
Downloads of U.S. Telemedicine apps from leading telehealth companies have reported dramatic increases in demand for their services in the US since the COVID-19 pandemic began, according to GlobalData, a leading data, and analytics company.