DexCare CEO Derek Streat

Startups

DexCare Lands $75M to Merchandise Care

Healthcare consumerization is all the rage, and not many startups are driving it forward faster than DexCare, which just landed $75M in Series C funding just two years after spinning out from Providence.

The round brings DexCare’s total funding to $146M as it looks to help health systems attract new patients, capture more downstream revenue, and control costs to fuel growth.

How does DexCare achieve this holy trinity of value propositions? By allowing providers to “merchandise their care” and manage both sides of the access problem.

• On the front-end, DexCare helps generate demand by making the right care more discoverable through search engines and provider websites. The platform matches patients to best-fit providers, settings, and care modalities, then facilitates seamless appointment booking.

• On the back-end, DexCare manages workforce supply by forecasting demand and monitoring staff utilization, then precisely coordinates scheduling across service lines / modalities to optimize capacity and operational costs.

DexCare already reaches more than 57M patients across all 50 states, but the additional funding will continue to accelerate its expansion while building out its product portfolio.

• Since the spin out, DexCare reports that it’s boosted new-patient bookings by 30%, generated 20% cost reductions per patient encounter, and increased downstream revenue for its partners by a whopping 8x multiple. 

• Those are some pretty impressive stats, and the fact that DexCare was able to raise an oversubscribed round in a tough funding environment seems to back them up.

The Takeaway

Although the “digital front door” tag might be overplayed, DexCare’s platform really lives up to the title. Providers are still investing heavily in the infrastructure to capture a new generation of hybrid-care-first consumers, and last time we checked frontline workers were still burned out. DexCare is well positioned to capitalize on both trends, and its value proposition will only resonate louder if hospitals continue to struggle with financial and workforce challenges.

Patient Engagement for a VP of Patient Experience

Nuance’s patient engagement guide for hospital execs gives a patient’s-eye view of the engagement experience and explores what the growing demand for convenient interactions means for the VP of Patient Experience.

4 Tips for Licensing Your Telehealth Providers

Telemedicine is the next frontier of care delivery, yet many providers continue to be hampered by the complex process of medical licensing. If you’re one of them, check out Medallion’s four tips for licensing your telehealth providers.

Successful RPM Through End-to-End Support

From needs assessments and program deployment to security enhancements and call center monitoring, Clear Arch Health offers fully customizable support services to help you get the most from your RPM solution.

The Wire

• Optum Acquires Amedisys: The votes are in, and apparently Amedisys is one of those home health companies that would rather have a mountain of cash than stock options. After initially agreeing to a $3.6B all-stock takeover by Option Care Health, Amedisys opted to dissolve that transaction in favor of Optum’s competing offer of $101 per share in cash ($3.3B). Our top story from a few weeks back will give you the details, but picking up Amedisys and its Contessa subsidiary now makes Optum the proud owner of ~10% of the entire home care market.

• The ER Fireworks Show: It’s that time of year again, and Americans are getting ready for an Independence Day weekend filled with family, friends, and one of every ER doctor’s worst enemies: fireworks. Data from Pew Research Center shows that an average of 91k people visit US hospital emergency rooms between July 4th and 5th, by far the highest daily numbers of the entire year (the average is under 39k ER visits). The cause of the spike probably isn’t a surprise: over half of all yearly fireworks injuries in the US are sustained in the first week of July. One look at this chart and you’ll get the picture. 

• Epic Integrates DAX Express: After several months of teasing upcoming generative AI capabilities, Epic announced that it is integrating Nuance Communications’ Dragon Ambient eXperience Express (DAX Express) solution into Epic workflows to serve as a copilot for administrative tasks. DAX Express is the first clinical documentation app to combine conversational AI with OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, allowing it to create draft notes in a matter of seconds by eliminating the need for a human quality checker before clinicians can review and upload the notes to the EHR.

• Shopping Cart AFib Screening: UK researchers found that supermarket shopping carts (or “trolleys” over there) could be used to screen for undiagnosed atrial fibrillation during people’s daily routines. Among 2,155 adults who used the AF screening shopping carts, 220 were flagged by the carts or an on-site pharmacist, and 59 were later diagnosed with AF (39 previously undetected). Although better accuracy will be required, the authors highlighted the benefits for those 39 participants, and the “promise” of shopping cart AF screening.

• AvoMD Closes $5M Seed Round: AvoMD closed a $5M seed round to help fund its no-code application development platform for point of care solutions. The app builder allows any healthcare provider (with analyst bandwidth and a DIY attitude) to build their own apps regardless of the specialty or care setting, including use cases such as interactive clinical guidelines (i.e. sepsis, COVID), medical calculators, or documentation automation.

• CBT Effective for Dialysis Side Effects: A randomized clinical trial of 160 end-stage kidney disease patients in JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that virtual cognitive behavioral therapy can help with the side effects of long-term hemodialysis. The intervention group received 12 weekly sessions of a virtual CBT protocol (TACcare) that involved customized care to reach their individual goals, resulting in a 10% reduction in pain severity and a 6% increase in energy levels. Although the improvements were modest, the results were sustained at six months.

• FDA Psychedelic Trial Guidelines: The FDA laid out its first-ever guidance for psychedelic drug trials as substances like psilocybin and MDMA show increasing promise for treating conditions such as PTSD and depression. The goal of the guidance is to help researchers design studies that will yield interpretable results capable of supporting future drug applications, with guardrails surrounding trial conduct, data collection, and study safety. It’s a major milestone, although only Oregon and Colorado have decriminalized the supervised use of psychedelics, and neither has endorsed them as a mental health treatment.

• Nothing Like the Human Touch: We cover plenty of research about how patient portals improve care delivery, but a new study in JAMA Network Open highlighted that there’s no substitute for human contact. Patients who spoke with a clinician about serious findings on CT lung cancer screening exams were 3 times more likely to comply with follow-up recommendations than those whose findings were communicated more passively, such as through online portals or email. The study also confirmed that clinicians should shift from passive to active communication as findings become more suspicious.

• Oatmeal Adds Seward FQHC: Oatmeal Health added Alaska-based Seward Community Health Center to its roster of federally-qualified health center partners. Oatmeal will help Seward preventatively screen its patients for lung cancer through its platform that identifies eligible patients and facilitates local CT scanner logistics without Seward shouldering the burden or cost. The model leverages a virtual nodule clinic and supplemental AI image evaluation to ensure proper care, allowing the care to be covered by improvements in HEDIS scores and quality measures.

• VeraSite Clinical Trial Site Selection: Real-world data company Verana Health rolled out its new VeraSite solution to identify potential clinical trial sites for ophthalmology studies. VeraSite draws on deidentified EHR data to find practices with clinical expertise and patient populations that match individual study protocols, then allows sponsors to connect directly with participating practices to gauge interest in referring patients to the trial. Although VeraSite is currently limited to ophthalmology, it’s possible we’ll see a quick expansion into Verana’s other neurology and urology focus areas. 

• Patients Lack Financial Assistance Awareness: A TailorMed survey of 1k US patients found that 88% are interested in taking a more active role in their healthcare journeys, and nearly every respondent (95%) unsurprisingly felt it was important to understand their treatment costs and financial assistance options. Despite the importance, 20% of patients weren’t aware that financial assistance programs exist, and 50% were aware of them but were unsure how to enroll or had never tried to find more information.

A Flexible Prescription for Nurses

connectRN was founded to give nurses “radical flexibility,” with schedules that are crafted around their lifestyles, priorities, and personal needs. Check out connectRN’s feature in Fast Company to see how the future of healthcare is being built together with nurses.

The New Standard for Prescription Safety

Synapse Medicine’s quick-deploy Prescription Assistance API and components can be up and running in less than a day and instantly connect your HCPs to real-time drug data and prescribing support. Find out how easy it can be to equip your providers with the tools they need to ensure prescription safety and precision for their patients.

Patient-Centered Design for Diabetes Care

Glooko’s recently overhauled Mobile App makes it easier than ever for diabetes patients to organize, log, visualize, and share their data. Head over to this conversation with Glooko’s product and design team for a behind-the-scenes look at how patient-centered design is improving diabetes outcomes.