|
Optimizing Wellness Visits, Bonsai Seeds, and Consequences of Consolidation
September 29, 2025
|
|
|
|
|
Together with
|
|
|
|
“A job that I’m confident will not be that impacted is nurses. I think people really want that deep human connection with a person in that time, no matter how good the advice of the AI is or the robot or whatever. Like, you’ll really want that.”
|
|
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on “AI-proof” occupations.
|
|
|
|
Americans aren’t getting any younger, but a pair of new studies in the Annals of Family Medicine offer a deceptively simple way for providers to stay afloat in the Silver Tsunami: optimize the workflows hiding in plain sight.
In case anyone’s new here, the U.S. doesn’t have enough physicians to meet today’s patient demand, let alone the needs of a Medicare population that’s adding 10k seniors every day.
- New tech and AI-driven efficiencies might eventually balance the equation, but small changes at scale can still make a noticeable difference in the meantime.
Optimizing care means optimizing visits. Immediate concerns frequently overshadow preventive care, and that’s easy to see during Medicare annual wellness visits. The first study tested a straightforward solution by combining wellness visits with problem-based visits – and extending them from 20 to 40 minutes – at a five-office family medicine department.
- Completion rates for annual wellness visits skyrocketed 6x over nine months (8.4% to 50.8%), and the combined appointments had nearly half as many no-shows as traditional wellness visits (11.9% vs. 19.6%).
- Giving providers extra time to address new issues without derailing the agenda also boosted screenings across the board – depression, hemoglobin A1c, and a long list of cancers.
Pre-visit preparation pays off. The second study out of Mayo Clinic focused on getting more out of existing appointments with pre-visit test ordering.
- Researchers sent automated portal messages to 3,500 Medicare patients listing the tests they were due for in the next six months, along with a self-scheduling link and a nudge to review results in a wellness visit.
- About 27% of patients followed through on the message. Physicians appreciated being able to order follow-ups ahead of time, and patients loved discussing results during their regular visit.
The Takeaway
Combined appointments and pre-visit testing won’t stop a Silver Tsunami, but these studies show that they’re practical changes that might at least make some decent floaties.
|
|
Scale RPM With BPM Pro 2
BPM Pro 2 is the next generation cellular blood pressure monitors, empowering care teams to scale remote patient monitoring and streamline operations. Discover why leading providers are choosing BPM Pro 2 to collect highly precise measurements and enrich data with Patient Insights from their daily lives.
|
|
Under the Hood of Navina’s AI
Navina’s AI engine harnesses over 600 proprietary algorithms to transform fragmented patient data into actionable clinical intelligence at the point of care. It’s shaped with the expertise of physicians to turn multiple data sources (EHR, HIE, claims, care gap files, etc.) into contextualized insights like suspected conditions or evidence for care gap closures – each linked back to the original source. Download the whitepaper to see examples of Navina’s AI in action.
|
|
- Providers Face ACA Revenue Cliff: A new analysis from RWJF suggests that providers are up against $32B in lost revenue if ACA subsidies expire at the end of the year. Pandemic-era tax credits drove enrollment in ACA exchange plans to over 24M members, but those subsidies are set to expire unless an extension is reached ahead of this week’s shutdown deadline (Sept. 30). RWJF is forecasting that 7.3M people will lose subsidized coverage and 4.8M will become uninsured. Hospitals are expected to take the brunt of it ($14.2B in lost 2026 revenue), while doctor’s offices stand to lose $5.1B.
- Judi Health Raises $400M: The transparent PBM formerly known as Capital Rx is rebranding to Judi Health after raising $400M to evolve into a full-service health benefits technology company. The upcoming three-pronged platform will consist of: (1) the “Capital Rx” suite of PBM solutions for self-insured employers; (2) “Judi Health” full-service health benefit management for employers and health plans; and (3) the “Judi” SaaS solution that helps payors manage their claim workflows.
- RevSpring Scoops Up Kyruus: RevSpring is acquiring Kyruus Health to create a unified platform that connects patient journeys all the way from provider search to payment. The integrated platform will combine Kyruus’ provider data, search, and scheduling capabilities with RevSpring’s patient engagement and RCM solutions. The ultimate goal is to make it easier for people to find and access care in a single motion while boosting conversion from search to payment.
- WellSky CarePort Referral Intake: WellSky debuted a new WellSky CarePort Referral Intake solution that leverages its WellSky SkySense AI tool to streamline intake workflows for faster referral response times. If there’s anything WellSky loves more than putting its company name in front of all its products, it’s helping post-acute providers secure business and ensure smooth care transitions. WellSky CarePort Referral Intake makes that happen by giving them a centralized view of referral data alongside AI-generated summaries.
- Consequences of Consolidation: Private practice consolidation is triggering new warnings that a less competitive market is driving up healthcare costs. A GAO report found that over 47% of physician practices were either employed by or affiliated with a hospital network in 2024, up from just 30% in 2012. That’s resulted in rising facility fees – especially among services such as chemotherapy, echocardiography, and cardiac imaging. Not the end of the world if care quality and access rose alongside them, but lo-and-behold the data suggests that hasn’t been the case.
- Bonsai Seeds: Bonsai Health closed a $7M seed round to support its AI predictive intelligence platform that identifies patients in need of follow-up, preventive, or routine care. The startup was co-founded by Travis Schneider and Luke Kervin, who have co-led three consecutive companies through successful exits, most notably practice growth platform PatientPop (merged with Kareo to form Tebra in 2021). Bonsai has already helped dermatology practices schedule $112M worth of follow-ups since launching in 2024, booking over 29k appointments that patients had previously delayed or missed.
- Digital Consortium Expansion: Aegis Ventures’ Digital Consortium expanded its ranks with three new health systems to accelerate the development of real-world-ready technologies: Yale New Haven Health, Keck Medicine of USC, and Hartford HealthCare. The trio will work alongside Aegis to co-develop, invest in, and scale AI-powered solutions to their shared clinical and operational challenges, a perfect example being its freshly funded teleophthalmology platform Optain Health. The Digital Consortium’s roster now stands at 14 systems representing nearly 8% of U.S. healthcare and $100B+ in operating revenue.
- Artisight + YNHH: Yale New Haven Health is rolling out Artisight’s NVIDIA-powered Smart Hospital Platform through an enterprise-wide agreement, and it sounds like it’s swapping out Teladoc’s competing solution in the process. Artisight fuels its AI platform with a combination of computer vision, voice recognition, and RTLS data to equip hospitals with a real-time “sixth sense.” The always-on system proactively detects dangers and coordinates interventions to protect patients while reducing the burden on care teams.
- Doximity Integrates Pathway: Doximity has been pedal-to-the-metal since acquiring Pathway back in August, and just took the lid off a range of new upgrades to Doximity GPT. The famed “Pathway Corpus” and AI model are now fully integrated, allowing Doximity GPT to deliver peer-reviewed answers to upwards of 3k drug queries, access to 2k+ journals, and all-around faster outputs. The new capabilities arrive as Wolters Kluwer launches its own long-anticipated AI clinical decision support tool.
- U.S. Probes Medical Device Imports: The tariff wars are about to start getting real for manufacturers importing medical devices. The Department of Commerce just kicked off an investigation into medical device imports under a federal law that allows the government to restrict or impose tariffs on imports that “threaten to impair” national security. Those imports include personal protective equipment, medical consumables, and devices such as RPM hardware or imaging scanners.
|
|
Next Generation Ambient Tech and Agents
The ambient AI transformation is already sweeping across health systems, reducing administrative burdens and improving patient outcomes. So, what’s next? Tune into this on-demand session to learn how systems like Carle Health and Denver Health are leveraging Nabla to eliminate Pajama Time and build a future where agentic AI unlocks true workforce sustainability.
|
|
10 Strategies to Expedite Provider Credentialing
Lagging provider credentialing workflows can create a wave of unexpected care delays and financial setbacks. Sidestep these pitfalls by tuning into Medallion’s recording of 10 Key Strategies to Expedite Provider Credentialing and see how your organization can keep a well-oiled team and patient care intact through the ever-evolving changes seen in healthcare.
|
|
- Achieve Ambient AI Scale With Abridge: According to a new report from MIT, 95% of generative AI implementations fail. At Abridge, we have helped 150+ health systems scale ambient AI to tens of thousands of clinicians—many in a matter of weeks. For the first time ever, we are sharing those steep adoption curves at partners, along with impact metrics and testimonials from 19 health systems. If your ambient AI implementation isn’t scaling at speed, Abridge can help.
- Are You Invisible on AI Search? Your next patient is asking ChatGPT. But unless your healthcare company has content that answers their questions, you won’t show up. Tely AI fixes this by analyzing your niche, identifying what patients and partners look for, and publishing expert-level content to make you visible on Google AI, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Launch your AI agent in 5 minutes and get your first article on us.
|
|
|
|
|
