More than six months after the Covid-19 public health emergency ended, healthcare leaders continue to sift through the aftermath of the pandemic and its lasting effects on the US healthcare system.

But while some impacts of the viral outbreak—like staffing shortages and the embrace of new telehealth opportunities—rose to the forefront of public health circles almost immediately, industry experts caution that others could take “months or years” to surface, according to the American College of Cardiology. One of those consequences, for example, is the potential fallout that pandemic-related liability law changes, including immunity provisions, may have had on medical malpractice insurance and claims.

Michelle Mello, a professor of law and health policy at Stanford University, told Healthcare Brew that because lawsuits often take about three to four years to work through the legal system, “it’s hard to know what’s going on in the [malpractice] industry.” However, she said she doesn’t “have any reason to think that Covid itself was a particular source of claims.”

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.

Technology should be streamlining how healthcare organizations work, not complicating it. For IT that simplifies the practice of healthcare, turn to athenahealth.

athenahealth’s platform is efficient and intuitive, so you can streamline your day-to-day processes without adding another level of complexity.

Find a practical solution for your practice with athenahealth’s platform + features, including:

• integrated workflows that create a better experience for both you and your patients
• AI-assisted tools to radically improve claims accuracy
• automatic updates without upgrade fees, downtime, and extra work

Grow your practice and deliver more quality care when you partner with athenahealth for all of your healthcare IT needs.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down much of the world and forcing most people to quarantine in their homes for months on end, many startups actually thrived in 2020 as they raced to fulfill unmet needs the public health crisis had created.

One such startup was Carbon Health, which was founded in 2015 and began offering Covid testing in late 2020 and Covid vaccinations in early 2021. By 2021, Carbon Health’s revenue had nearly quintupled to $228 million, thanks largely to its Covid services, business media company The Information reported. By 2021, the startup was valued at $3.3 billion—touting goals to become the largest primary care provider in the US and open 1,500 clinics by 2025.

Besides Covid, venture capital (VC) dollars also boosted Carbon Health’s success: the company raised $674 million from top VC firms, including Blackstone—one of the largest private equity firms in the world—over the course of six years, according to The Information.

But the boom didn’t last long.

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.

CommonSpirit Health intends to expand its ambulatory care network as part of an effort to turn around the system’s financial performance following a $738 million net loss in Q1 of its 2024 fiscal year, executives wrote in a November 15 earnings report.

The net loss follows a string of deficits for the Chicago-based nonprofit health system, which reported a $1.4 billion operating loss for its 2023 fiscal year and a $1.3 billion operating loss in 2022, Healthcare Brew previously reported. The company cited salary and supply costs rising faster than payer reimbursement rates as primary contributors to the system’s Q1 2024 loss.

The shift toward ambulatory care reflects a wider trend among health systems to move services outside traditional hospital settings, as ambulatory care is one of the “highest margin segments of the healthcare industry,” according to a 2020 McKinsey report.

Keep reading here.—MA

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: About 25 million adults in the US are Asian, but the federal government lumps them in as one demographic—obscuring health disparities. (Stat)

Quote: “Measles is really difficult—it will find even the smallest gaps in your protection.”—Cynthia Hatcher, a CDC employee who works on measles elimination in Africa, on the rising number of cases and deaths across the globe after the Covid pandemic (the New York Times)

Read: Anti-abortion groups, “undeterred” by state election losses, have turned their eyes to courts and statehouses. (KFF Health News)

Healthcare partner: Your tech should grow with your practice. That’s why athenahealth’s intuitive tech automatically updates to meet changing needs—without upgrade fees, downtime, or extra work.*

^{*A message from our sponsor.}