As the pandemic squeezed practice margins and forced thousands of clinics to close, physicians increasingly moved to a newer, more reliable business model: concierge medicine.

Under a concierge model, patients pay an annual membership fee to a physician practice and in turn get access to a suite of benefits like 24/7 on-demand doctor access.

Most concierge practices focus on primary care, but New York City-based Sollis Health is changing up the game and offering concierge emergency care.

The company—which was founded in 2016 and has raised $50 million in venture capital across two funding rounds—bills itself as the “first and only concierge urgent and emergency care provider,” and has 10 clinics in New York, California, and Florida.

Keep reading here.—MA

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Maia at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Maia for her number on Signal.

The complexities of healthcare IT, from billing errors and patient scheduling to dealing with denied claims, make it difficult for healthcare organizations to focus on what matters.

athenahealth’s time-saving, intuitive tech can foster less time spent on repetitive tasks and more on face-to-face interactions with patients. The result? Thousands of practices have seen accelerated growth with athenaOne.

With automated outreach to reduce no-shows, AI that helps catch errors before claims are even submitted, and 42.6m patients completing self check-in this year, your patients won’t lose their patience—and neither will you.

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Wealth often translates to better health, but research suggests that the extent of that benefit can vary—even if individuals have similar financial situations.

A recent study from a University of Kansas (KU) researcher found that patients with more financial assets, like savings and retirement plans, and secured debt—or loans backed by collateral, like a mortgage—generally have better health outcomes than those with unsecured debt, like credit card or medical debt. However, patients of color, especially young Black adults, had to be wealthier to experience the same level of health as their white counterparts.

The findings, published this summer in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, underscore how racial disparities affect health access, even among patients with the resources to access high-quality care.

Keep reading here.—SY

Do you work in healthcare or have information about the industry that we should know? Email Shannon at [email protected]. For confidential conversations, ask Shannon for her number on Signal.

The genetic testing provider 23andMe changed its terms of service, and required users to change their passwords and set up two-factor authentication, following password compromises that led to a potential exposure of millions of profile records.

What was stolen: In an October breach, hackers were able to access 14,000 user profiles, which then compromised the data of approximately 7 million DNA Relatives profiles, along with about 1.4 million Family Tree feature profiles, according to an announcement from the company.

DNA Relative details include “percentage of DNA shared with your matches,” location, ancestry reports, profile pictures, birth year, and a family tree link. (The Family Tree feature is a more limited subset of DNA Relatives.)

Keep reading at IT Brew.—BH

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: More than two-thirds of pregnant people experience nausea and vomiting, symptoms commonly referred to as morning sickness in the first trimester of pregnancy. (the New York Times)

Quote: “Obesity is a disease. It’s not about willpower—it’s about the brain.”—Oprah Winfrey, media mogul and WW stakeholder and board member, on taking weight loss medication (People Magazine)

Read: Conservative strategists say promoting contraception will win races for the party in 2024. (Politico)

New meds in town: With obesity levels on the rise, weight management drugs are top of mind. We partnered with CVS Caremark to understand how GLP-1s are changing the game—and how plan sponsors can keep pharmacy costs down and improve outcomes. Here’s what we learned.*

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