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☆ Damaging hacks expose the weak underbelly of America’s health care system
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Sean Lyngaas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Washington CNN —A pair of recent ransomware attacks crippled computer systems at two major American health care firms, disrupting patient care and exposing fundamental weaknesses in the US health care system’s defenses against hackers. Health care lags other industries such as big financial institutions and energy providers when it comes to IT security, according to some experts. The two ransomware attacks hit different nerves of the health care system. Momentum is also growing on Capitol Hill to force health care organizations to meet basic cybersecurity standards. More broadly, the Justice Department last week announced a task force to examine “health care monopolies and collusion” that will guide the department’s approach to “civil and criminal enforcement in health care markets,” where warranted.

Persons: cybersecurity, ” Joshua Corman, Sen, Ron Wyden, ”, cybercriminals, Biden, Anne Neuberger, Mark Warner, ” Carter Groome, Corman, ‘, ” Sen, Marsha Blackburn, Andrew Organizations: Washington CNN, Biden, “ Industry, CNN, Oregon Democrat, ransomware, Change Healthcare, White House, American Hospital Association, Department of Health, Human Services, Virginia Democrat, Healthcare, cybersecurity, Health, Cavalry, UnitedHealth, Optum, Tennessee Republican, Justice Department, UnitedHealth Group, Wall Street, Department Locations: St, Louis, United States, Virginia, Tennessee

☆ Walmart is shuttering all its 51 health centers and ending virtual care services as Amazon leans into the space
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-30 | by ( Dominick Reuter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Walmart will shut down the health clinics it has at 51 stores across five states. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . AdvertisementWalmart says it will shut down the 51 health clinics it has at retail stores across five states, as well as its virtual care operation as the business has become "unsustainable." AdvertisementStaffed by physicians and licensed care providers, the clinics offered services ranging from primary care to behavioral health, as well as labs and X-rays. Virtual care was also available through walmarthealth.com.

Persons: —, Walgreens Organizations: Walmart, Service, Dallas Morning News, CNBC, Dallas Morning, Amazon Locations: Georgia, Arkansas , Florida , Illinois, Texas

☆ When her doctor doubted the severity of her morning sickness, this geneticist and Time Woman of the Year found the cause herself
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Renée Onque | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Geneticist Marlena Fezjo says she had bad morning sickness during her first pregnancy, but the symptoms she experienced during her second pregnancy in 1999 were much worse. The only time Fezjo wasn't nauseous, she says, is when she laid "completely still and flat," and she wasn't able to hold down food or drinks. Fezjo was eventually diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), but when she talked about her symptoms with her doctor, they didn't believe they were as bad as she described. Fezjo wasn't exaggerating in the slightest: "It was so bad that I could not eat or move without vomiting." She went on to discover the gene that caused her severe morning sickness symptoms.

Persons: Marlena Fezjo, Fezjo, hyperemesis gravidarum, Wales, Kate Middleton, haven't Organizations: CNBC, National Health Service, Harmonia Healthcare

☆ ‘We’re hemorrhaging money’: US health clinics try to stay open after unprecedented cyberattack
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-09 | by ( Sean Lyngaas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —For more than two weeks, a cyberattack has disrupted business at health care providers across the United States, forcing small clinics to scramble to stay in business and exposing the fragility of the billing system that underpins American health care. It prevented some insurance payments on prescription drugs from processing, leaving many care providers effectively footing the bill without reimbursement. Health care groups have pleaded with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to offer medical practices a financial lifeline. A week ago, Change Healthcare announced plans for a temporary loan program to get money flowing to health care providers affected by the outage. Tyler Mason, a spokesperson for Change Healthcare, declined to comment when asked if the company had paid off the hackers.

Persons: ”, Catherine Reinheimer, Mel Davies, ” Jesse Ehrenfeld, Reinheimer, Richard Pollack, Carter Groome, ” Groome, Tyler Mason, ALPHV, ” Ari Redbord, Joshua Corman, Corman, “ Organizations: CNN, Change Healthcare, Health, Department of Health, Human Services, Oregon Oncology, Healthcare, American Medical Association, US, Medical Group Management Association, Community Oncology Alliance, American Hospital Association, Justice Department, ALPHV, Labs Locations: United States, Philadelphia, UnitedHealth, Oregon

The ramifications of a cyberattack on a critical health care technology company are still being felt across the U.S. nearly two weeks later. Change Healthcare has acknowledged the hack, which reportedly affected billing and care authorization portals. “Our experts are working to address the matter, and we are working closely with law enforcement and leading third-party consultants such as Mandiant and Palo Alto Networks on this attack against Change Healthcare’s systems,” Change Healthcare said. “On Feb. 21, 2024, we discovered a threat actor gained access to one of our Change Healthcare environments,” Change Healthcare said. A spokesperson affiliated with Change Healthcare declined to answer whether a ransom has been paid, according to Wired.

Persons: paychecks, Chuck Schumer, Jesse Ehrenfeld, Rick Pollack, “, ”, Schumer, ” Schumer, Pollack Organizations: Healthcare, Palo Alto Networks, New, American Medical Association, Department of Health, Human Services, American Hospital Association, HHS, AHA, UnitedHealth Group, The Washington Post, Justice Department, Health, Medicare, Medicaid Services, Wired, Change Healthcare Locations: U.S, Palo, New York, Optum

☆ Health insurance giant roiled by cyberattack sets up loan program for cash-strapped health providers
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-01 | by ( Sean Lyngaas | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —Change Healthcare, the health insurance IT giant disrupted for days by a cyberattack, on Friday announced plans for a temporary loan program to get money flowing to health care providers affected by the outage. It’s a stop-gap measure meant to give some financial relief to health care providers, which analysts say are losing millions of dollars per day because of the outage. Some US officials and health care executives told CNN it may be weeks before Change Healthcare returns to normal operations. The temporary loan program will help health care providers with “short-term cash flow needs,” Change Healthcare said in a statement. A unit of healthcare conglomerate UnitedHealth, Change Healthcare processes prescriptions to insurance for tens of thousands of pharmacies nationwide.

Persons: ” Carter Groome Organizations: CNN, Friday, Healthcare, White, Health, Human Services, Senior, American Hospital Association, First Health, Justice Department Locations: Maryland, Michigan

☆ Norway's giant wealth fund touts possibility of Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly joining the trillion-dollar club
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-31 | by ( Sam Meredith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

A pharmacist displays boxes of Ozempic, a semaglutide injection drug used for treating type 2 diabetes made by Novo Nordisk, at Rock Canyon Pharmacy in Provo, Utah, U.S. March 29, 2023. Norway's giant wealth fund, the world's largest, touted the possibility that Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk and U.S. rival Eli Lilly could be on course to become the first healthcare members of the trillion-dollar club. Novo Nordisk, Europe's largest firm by market capitalization, on Wednesday reported stronger-than-anticipated 2023 earnings, as sales of its hugely popular drug Wegovy continued to soar. The largest pharmaceutical company in the world by market value, Eli Lilly currently stands at roughly $612 billion. NBIM, the world's biggest single stock market investor, holds a 2.5% stake in Novo Nordisk and a 0.98% stake in Eli Lilly, according to LSEG data.

Persons: Eli Lilly, Wegovy, Gemma Game, Eli Lilly's Zepbound Organizations: Novo Nordisk, Pharmacy, Norges Bank Investment Management, Nordisk's Ozempic Locations: Provo , Utah, U.S, Danish, Europe's

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — With Planet Earth running a fever, U.N. climate talks focused Sunday on the contagious effects on human health. “Climate change doesn’t need to be on a death certificate for us to be confident that climate change is causing deaths,” Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, WHO’s head of climate and health, said. Dubai, the largest city in oil-rich United Arab Emirates, often faces higher levels of air pollution than other places on Earth due to its location — and haze is common. The Dubai government, on its web site devoted to the environment, listed its Air Quality Index level mostly at “good” on Sunday. Switzerland-based IQAir, a technology company that sells air-quality monitoring products, listed Dubai as the city with the 18th-worst air quality in the world with “moderate” air quality levels as of noon local time on Sunday.

Persons: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, ”, —, Antonio Guterres, Guterres, John Kerry, ” Kerry, Vanessa, Tedros, Diarmid Campbell, ” Diarmid Campbell, Jon Gambrell, Peter Prengaman Organizations: United Arab Emirates, Health Organization, Conference, WHO, United, Associated Press, AP Locations: DUBAI, United Arab, Dubai, U.N, —, U.S, United Arab Emirates, Persian, Switzerland

For many, we may be the first health care workers they meet at their most dismal hour. But it’s also what makes our workplace so dangerous, more than ever, and jeopardizes the emergency care that everyone receives. Last year one of my patients was on the phone, lamenting about how long he had been in the emergency room. When I turned to look at him, he yelled a racial epithet before hurling a desktop computer into the area where doctors and nurses sit. The health workers at the University of Vermont Health Network in the video above share examples of this.

Persons: “, —, it’s, hasn’t Organizations: of Emergency Physicians, University of Vermont Health Network

☆ Our crisis of loneliness, the new bet investors are going after
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-04 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

Not long after founding the startup, Gaon shared his vision with famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. It was notable to Gaon at the time that Andreessen — "one of those investors who's known for seeing where the market is going" — appeared to have pinpointed loneliness as its own market. That moved her parents, Cindy and Anne Jordan, who had sold their first healthtech company years before, to found the Arizona company Pyx Health. "The loneliness crisis is bigger, and more urgent, than anything I've worked on before," Nyborg wrote in a blog post. Inspired debuted a thesis in 2020 that identified loneliness as a key focus for the firm to invest in.

Persons: Benjamin Gaon, Boaz Gaon, Benny, Gaon, Marc Andreessen, Andreessen, Wisdo, —, Anne Wojcicki, Marius Nacht, Andreessen Horowitz, Vivek Murthy, Betsy Hoover, Bumble, Rylie Sarabia, Cindy, Anne Jordan, policyholders, Dawn Owens, it's, Owens, Julie Rice, Elizabeth Cutler, Rice, Peoplehood, Phil Levin, Levin, Culdesac, Renate Nyborg, I've, Nyborg, Hugo Amsellem, He's, Ava, Catalyst, Nate Tepper, Tepper, Adam Besvinick, Frances Haugen, Hoover, Alexa von Tobel, von Tobel, David Spinks Organizations: Pyx, Labs, verve, Investors, Pyx Health, TT Capital Partners, New, Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capita, AI Fund, NEA, AIs, Looking Glass, Anonymous, Glass, Facebook, Bloomberg Locations: Arizona, Minneapolis, New York, Ava, France, Peoplehood, Hopscotch

☆ How 4 US health systems are using AI to tackle big challenges like managing patient emails and documenting visits
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Leaders at four health systems shared how they use AI to manage emails or help doctors take notes. Some health systems also have experimented with using AI to help diagnose disease. But health systems are generally cautious about deploying the technology in clinical care, where the stakes are higher. Here's how four healthcare systems are using AI to tackle some of their biggest challenges. Sutter Health is using AI to manage patients' messagesDr. Albert Chan, the chief digital health officer at Sutter Health.

☆ The former CEO of Aetna shares how he plans to turn around the struggling health insurer Oscar
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Oscar Health struggled to upend the entrenched health insurance industry. Oscar Health has been trying and struggling to upend the US health-insurance industry and the entrenched giants that dominate it for the past 10 years. Oscar Health incoming CEO Mark Bertolini Bridgewater AssociatesLast year, Oscar lost a $60 million contract with its first client, Health First Health Plans. Bertolini wants Oscar to disrupt health-insurance giantsMario Schlosser, founding CEO of Oscar Health Eduardo Munoz/ReutersDespite losing the Health First deal, Bertolini is betting that Oscar will disrupt the insurance industry through partnerships. Oscar has developed health plans with health systems in the past.

☆ UnitedHealth Revenue Climbs as Premiums Rise
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-13 | by ( Dean Seal | Anna Wilde Mathews | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

UnitedHealth is the first healthcare heavyweight to report earnings this season. UnitedHealth Group Inc. closed out 2022 with a fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit revenue growth as both premiums and medical costs continue to rise. The healthcare and insurance company said Friday that revenue rose 12% to $82.79 billion, topping analyst expectations of $82.48 billion, according to FactSet.

☆ Oscar Health CEO Mario Schlosser shares how the health-insurance upstart plans to finally turn a profit after years of losses
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Oscar Health has bled money since it was founded more than a decade ago. Oscar Health, the 10-year-old health insurer, has never turned a profit. In an interview with Insider in November, Schlosser said Oscar had already done the legwork to turn a profit. Oscar is doing a better job at lowering patients' medical costs and is raising the prices of its health plans, he said. In 2013, Oscar met with outside actuaries to price its first health plans, Schlosser said.

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