Health IT Business News – January 2, 2020

Product News

DrFirst’s Patent-Pending AI-Based Technology Solves Major Hurdles to Medication Reconciliation: Missing Information and Unstructured Data
DrFirst (@DrFirst), a provider of e-prescribing, patient medication management, and price transparency solutions, announced that it will be awarded a second U.S. patent for its SmartSuite technology. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO’s) Notice of Allowance for a patent (application no. 14/972,209) is for SmartSig’s “method and system for intelligent completion of medical records based on big data analytics.”

Financial News

Sutter Health will pay $575 million and adopt pricing changes to settle antitrust case
According to the Los Angeles Times, Sutter Health will pay $575 million to settle a closely watched antitrust case filed by California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, whose office had accused the nonprofit healthcare giant of using its market dominance in Northern California to illegally drive up prices.

Fujifilm to Acquire Hitachi’s Diagnostic Imaging-related Business to Accelerate Growth of Its Healthcare Business
FUJIFILM Corporation announced that it has entered into an agreement with Hitachi, Ltd. to acquire Hitachi’s Diagnostic Imaging-related Business to further expand its Healthcare business.

BESLER Acquires Majority Ownership in Panacea Healthcare Solutions Inc.
BESLER (@beslerdotcom), a market leader in revenue recovery and hospital reimbursement solutions, announced an agreement to acquire majority ownership of Panacea Healthcare Solutions Inc. (“Panacea”), a leader in hospital and physician revenue cycle services and supporting technology.

CMS Made an Estimated $93.6 Million in Incorrect Medicare Electronic Health Record Incentive Payments to Acute-Care Hospitals, or Less Than 1 Percent of $10.8 Billion in Total Incentive Payments
According to the Office of Inspector General, the Federal Government makes Medicare payments to acute-care and critical-access hospitals as an incentive for using electronic health records (EHRs). A prior OIG audit found that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) made an estimated $729 million in Medicare EHR incentive payments to eligible professionals who did not comply with Federal requirements.

Contract News

Thomas Health Optimizes EHR and Goes LIVE with MEDITECH Expanse
Enhancing patient care and maximizing efficiency, Thomas Health (Charleston, WV) recently went LIVE with MEDITECH Expanse (@MEDITECH), the company’s state-of-the-art Enterprise Health Record (EHR). The move to Expanse is part of the organization’s ongoing initiative to have one EHR that provides a complete view of the patient across care settings.

Making the Cut

KLAS Research: Arcadia’s Care Management Solution Scores Highly for Identifying and Closing Care Gaps
Value-based care technology leader Arcadia (@ArcadiaHealthIT) announced today that highly-regarded third-party analyst KLAS Research recognized its population health management platform Arcadia Analytics for its ability to support identifying and closing gaps in care. Arcadia received a score of 8.7 out of 9 (limited data) for this capability.1 In their Population Health Care Management 2019 report, KLAS evaluated Arcadia’s care management capabilities versus its competitors and assessed the platform’s ability to support the work of care managers.