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Smarter Technologies, Huma M&A, and Hospital CapEx Dynamics
May 22, 2025
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Together with
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“To some observers… AI would appear on the surface to be a new technology arms race, in which health plans invest first, health systems and hospitals catch up, there’s a certain level of disruption, and eventually a new equilibrium emerges. But it would be a mistake to assume that the AI-led disruption of today will play out similarly to the changes wrought by automation.”
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Smarter Technologies CEO Jeremy Delinksy
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New Mountain Capital just hit us with one of the biggest blockbuster mergers of the year, combining portfolio companies SmarterDx, Thoughtful.ai, and Access Healthcare into a new RCM powerhouse dubbed Smarter Technologies.
Payors and providers are at war over every dollar, and Smarter is leveling the battlefield by arming health systems with a comprehensive revenue cycle management platform built on the unique strengths of its founding companies. That includes:
- SmarterDx’s clinical AI for revenue integrity and care quality
- Thoughtful.ai’s agentic AI for healthcare operations and revenue cycle automation
- Access Healthcare’s established RCM and outsourcing expertise
As a combined force, Smarter’s “Automation and Insights Platform for Healthcare Efficiency” includes three core pillars, complete with a sleek intro video for the visual learners.
- Nebula trains and deploys virtual AI agents that can automate the resolution of up to 70% of revenue cycle tasks while adjusting on the fly to unexpected payor responses.
- Overwatch is the “lowest cost-to-serve global workforce platform,” enabling healthcare orgs to slash labor costs and lost collections with quality guarantees of 99%.
- Spotlight delivers AI-driven clinical insights to surface pre-bill revenue and augment claims adjudication, but can be used at any stage of the rev cycle to optimize collections.
“Rip-and-replace” isn’t an approach that many health systems are eager to risk with their entire RCM systems, which is why Smarter CEO Jeremy Delinsky emphasized the platform’s modularity during his excellent Slice of Healthcare interview.
- Smarter’s menu of EHR-agnostic solutions target specific areas like patient eligibility verification, prior auths, or AR followups – allowing its partners to adopt new AI capabilities without overhauling their existing tech stacks.
- That leaves plenty of room to layer on more solutions down the road, and Smarter is already serving over 200 clients while managing 400M+ transactions annually.
The Takeaway
It’s easy enough to announce a massive merger, but integrating three separate companies is a whole different story. Smarter Technologies has all the makings of a platform that can be more than the sum of its parts, but if it wants to ensure that more health systems have the margin to fulfill their mission, the real work is just getting started.
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Future-Proof Your Health System with Scalable, Accessible Primary Care
The reality of modern health system primary care: more patients, fewer resources, constant pressure to deliver. K Health offers a strategic advantage, with a clinical AI and Virtualist care model that provides the scalable solution you need to meet patient demand anytime, anywhere. Join the ranks of forward-thinking systems like Cedars-Sinai, Hackensack Meridian Health, and Hartford HealthCare. Explore the future of primary care with K Health.
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Humans of Healthcare: AltaMed’s Multilingual Community
AltaMed, the nation’s largest Federally Qualified Healthcare Center (FQHC), is partnering with Abridge to serve its majority-multilingual population. Everyone deserves access to cutting-edge healthcare technology, no matter what language they speak. Learn more here.
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- Huma Joins Forces With Eckuity: Huma’s vision of becoming the “Shopify for Digital Health” just took a major step forward after kicking off a partnership with Eckuity Capital to fuel its aggressive M&A strategy. Although it’s unclear how much Eckuity is investing, Huma already put some of the capital to work by acquiring respiratory disease RPM company Aluna. Aluna’s solutions will now be relaunched on the Huma Cloud Platform, which includes a library of products and connectivity tools for a wide range of therapeutic areas (our deep dive on Huma has all the details).
- Hospital CapEx Dynamics: New research in Health Affairs challenged the narrative that M&A is the primary reason hospitals are raising prices in commercial markets. The analysis of hospital capital expenditures from 2010 to 2019 found that hospitals that invested more in capacity, services, or amenities gained market share and raised prices – independent of M&A-related market shifts. Hospitals that invested less unsurprisingly lost market power, prompting the authors to conclude that “these forces perpetuate a cycle of expanding and withering hospitals.”
- K Health + Mayo Clinic: K Health’s AI Physician Mode is now within arms reach of over 2,500 new PCPs after landing a spot as a qualified solution on Mayo Clinic Platform. AI Physician Mode automates intake and HPI collection through a patient-facing Medical Chat, then synthesizes the info into a “perfect chart” via a Provider Co-Pilot that also surfaces insights like potential diagnoses at the point of care – all within the existing EHR. The expanded partnership makes AI Physician Mode available to Mayo’s provider network of 31 health systems just a few weeks after K’s AI clinical recommendations were shown to rival doctors in real-world settings.
- Ovatient Launches MyCare Anywhere: Virtual-first care delivery company Ovatient announced the official launch of MyCare Anywhere, an omni-channel patient engagement experience powered by League’s CX platform. Rolling out in partnership with MetroHealth, MyCare Anywhere integrates with Epic to provide patients with personalized virtual care, live chat, mental health tracking, and guided health journeys to address long-standing access issues across Northeast Ohio. The experience is designed to be a “Digital Health Home” that connects patients to tailored care that’s integrated with the health system they know and trust.
- Sanford Partners With Cedar: Sanford Health is teaming up with Cedar to enhance the patient financial experience across its extensive network. As the largest rural health system in the U.S., Sanford is rolling out Cedar for over 2.4M patients, including new outreach strategies to maximize engagement, seamless incorporation of HSA information in medical billing, and personalized financial plan recommendations tailored to each patient’s unique needs.
- Omada Nutritional Intelligence: Fresh off its recent S-1 filing, Omada took the lid off a new Nutritional Intelligence experience that included the debut of its OmadaSpark member-facing AI agent. OmadaSpark will work alongside care teams to provide real-time educational support for nutrition questions, improve food decisions, and sustain lasting behavior change – whether or not they’re using GLP-1s.
- McFarland Clinic + Nabla: McFarland Clinic, the largest physician-owned multispecialty group in Iowa, adopted Nabla’s ambient AI assistant to reduce documentation time and support physician well-being. The rollout follows a successful pilot where clinicians reported finishing notes faster and better accuracy on complex visits, while also arriving hot on the heels of Iowa ranking sixth in the nation for physician satisfaction.
- GLP-1s Are Still Too Expensive: KPMG’s annual survey of American consumers suggests many people are still turned off by the cost of GLP-1s. The survey polled 2.5k adults about their outlook on GLP-1s and found that two-thirds saw weight loss as the drugs’ greatest benefit, but OOP costs were a major negative. Only 20% said they’d be willing to spend $100 per month for the meds, and more than 70% said they wouldn’t even be willing to pay out of pocket.
- Charta Partnership Results: Charta Health followed up its recent $8.1M fundraise by releasing some promising results from its pre-bill chart review and admin workflow automation platform. KidsCare Home Health was reportedly able to reduce its clinical management workload by 25% in 90 days, streamlining oversight for 700+ therapists. Virtual post-acute care provider Third Eye Health replaced its 10–15% manual chart review process with 100% pre-bill review coverage to catch errors before submission.
- FDA’s AI Slowdown: Has the pace of FDA marketing authorizations for new medical AI algorithms slowed down? And if so, what does that mean for AI developers? A fresh perspective piece from regulatory AI expert Dr. Hugh Harvey mulls both prospects, noting that the “pace and number of clearances has dropped off significantly.” He sees a shift toward generative AI occurring, and it could start taking longer to get approvals (the FDA still has yet to approve a generative AI medical device).
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From Chaos to Clarity: How Navina Is Transforming Healthcare Data
As healthcare becomes increasingly complex, escalating data challenges make it difficult for physicians to stay fully informed on their patients’ health status. Navina is changing the way physicians interact with patient data by transforming fragmented patient records into succinct summaries with AI-powered diagnosis suggestions at the point of care. Download the white paper to see how practices are leveraging Navina to enhance VBC performance and improve the clinician experience.
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Ensuring Compliance With Medical AI Scribes
AI scribes are transforming how providers document patient encounters, but new innovations come with new compliance risks. Head over to Playback Health’s quick-start guide to maintaining compliance in the age of AI, and see how Playback Health Pro is giving providers peace of mind with 100% data ownership, SOC 2 verification, and HIPAA-compliant encryption every step of the way.
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- Elevate 2025 – Medallion’s Virtual Conference Returns Sept 17: Now in its fourth year, Medallion’s annual conference is back – bringing together healthcare leaders to explore this year’s theme: Elevate the present. Reframe the future of healthcare. Hear from industry voices like Tom Lawry, author of Hacking Healthcare, UPMC Chief Medical Information Officer Robert Bart, and many more. Reserve your spot now.
- What Nurses Are Teaching Us About Ambient AI: Nurses are the backbone of healthcare, and their tools need to keep up with the growing complexity of their roles. For nurses, documentation isn’t just about compliance – it’s how they track key observations, ensure care continuity, and support billing. Nabla’s ambient AI is already helping 8,500 nurses streamline documentation and reclaim time for patients across 30+ orgs. See what Nabla’s building for the fast-paced needs of nursing workflows.
- Simplify RPM & Maximize Patient Engagement: Engaging patients at critical moments is essential for success. With Withings Health Nudges feature, care teams can send tailored messages to the screen of the blood pressure monitor— offering personalized support when they need it most.
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