Eating disorders often start at a younger age, but they don’t solely affect this population. Recognizing this, virtual eating disorder support company Equip announced Tuesday that it is now treating adults as well as adolescents. The company also announced an investment from General Catalyst, which helped expand its platform to adults. The amount was not disclosed.
“There is a very pervasive, really dense stereotype that eating disorders only affect 15- to 25-year-old thin, White girls,” said Dr. Erin Parks, chief clinical officer and co-founder of Equip, in an interview. “That is true, it does affect them. But it is not only them.”
She added that because so few people have access to treatment, many older adults have had their eating disorder for a very long time and need support.
San Diego-based Equip, which was founded in 2019, previously focused on those ages 6 to 24. The startup is now expanding to serve people of all ages. The virtual company operates in all 50 states and is in-network with several insurance companies, including Aetna, Elevance, Optum, Cigna and UnitedHealthcare. It connects patients with a care team that includes a therapist, dietitian, physician and peer and family mentor.
Different ages require different kinds of treatment, according to Parks. With its younger patients, the company uses family-based treatment, in which the family is brought in to help care for the patient. For adults, the company is using a method called enhanced cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a highly individualized treatment that addresses thoughts, feelings and behaviors affecting the patient’s eating disorder.
Parks said that when it comes to adults, individual treatment is often the best way to go because they may not have a support group. Sometimes when adults have been sick for a long time, they’ve “pushed away” a lot of their family and peers, or they may be too busy with work to build that support group.
There are other virtual solutions for eating disorders as well, including Arise and Within. Arise offers coaching with a care advocate who has lived experience with an eating disorder, therapy, nutrition counseling, group support and psychiatry. Within provides access to a care team that includes dietitians, therapists, nurses and peers.
The expansion to adults was powered by a recent investment by General Catalyst. In total, Equip has raised more than $75 million. With the funding, the company brought on a new president, Nikia Bergan. It also updated its technology and trained its providers in treating adults. In addition, it’s planning to use the funding to gain more Medicaid contracts, Parks said.
Equip considers itself an alternative to brick-and-mortar eating disorder treatments, which often require patients to stay at the treatment facility for a certain period. Parks said the benefit of a virtual program is that patients can be treated as they live their normal lives.
“[If you take] someone out of their life and give them a bunch of skills, then all of the sudden they plop back into their life and have all these triggers that they aren’t equipped to deal with,” Parks argued. “One of the great things about getting treatment while still being able to go to school, still being able to go to your job, still being able to parent your kids, is that you get to work with your providers on your real-life triggers as they come up.”
Parks is likely looking to replicate the positive results it claims to have achieved in the adolescent population in this new, adult population. In its annual outcomes report published earlier this year, the company cited that 81% of its adolescent patients reached or maintained their target weight within one year.
Photo credit: Bohdan Skrypnyk, Getty Images
The commercial market has been slower to adopt value-based care than the public market, but there are ways to move the process along successfully, executives said Monday.
During a panel at the Oliver Wyman Health Innovation Summit 2023 held in Chicago, healthcare leaders discussed the challenges and opportunities in advancing value-based care in commercial health plans. The panelists were Mark Hansberry, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of HealthPartners; Ellen Kelsay, president and CEO of Business Group on Health; and Tiffany Albert, senior vice president of health plan business at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
Bloomington, Minnesota-based HealthPartners, which is an integrated healthcare organization serving more than 1.8 million members, has had some success with value-based care in the commercial space, Hansberry claimed. He shared five rules for scaling value-based care in the commercial market:
1. Payers and providers in a value-based arrangement need to have a shared understanding of what value is for patients, Hansberry said.
“You have to have a universal definition of what value means so that when clinicians look at you as a payer … they need to acknowledge that what you’re saying a clinical outcome is is actually a good clinical outcome, a good measure of performance,” he stated.
2. It’s important to ensure that the providers in the value-based arrangement are able to and willing to take the risk associated with value-based care.
“Most care systems weren’t built to actually manage risk,” Hansberry said. “That wasn’t their job. Their job was to take care of sick people. Now we’re asking them to do something else. How do you actually support those individuals on that journey?”
3. Payers need to support providers engaging in value-based care with “real-time, actionable data and consultation,” Hansberry said.
“It’s not just a data dump or a big Excel file that you pass over and you say good luck with it,” he stated. “Because, by the way, if they perform well in those value-based contracts, you do too as a payer. You want them to perform well. So you want to provide them with good, insightful, actionable data that’s risk-adjusted, that is connected to their practice — not just an amorphous health system — but to their practice so they can take action on those insights. But then you also want to supplement that with that consultation along the way.”
4. The incentives in the value-based contract must be aligned to “enable that [provider] to reap the benefits of the value that they’re creating for those members,” according to Hansberry.
5. Ultimately, a value-based contract comes down to trust between all the parties. But Hansberry noted that this is easier for HealthPartners as an integrated health system.
“We’re fortunate because we’re both a health plan and a care system,” he said.
He added that success in value-based care doesn’t happen overnight, which is partially why it’s difficult to scale.
“It takes time to build trust,” Hansberry stated.
Photo: atibodyphoto, Getty Images
By Neall Digert, Ph.D., MIES
From the June 2023 Issue
With Americans, on average, spending more than 90% of their time indoors, cultivating a healthy indoor environment that meets sustainability goals can begin with sound daylighting strategies. The effective use of daylight in today’s buildings not only plays a significant role in achieving energy efficiency, but also successfully nurtures the occupants within. Each day, new research, case studies, design guides, and design standards magnify the importance of daylight as a source of interior lighting that drives human health, productivity, and happiness.
Each day, new research, case studies, design guides, and design standards magnify the importance of daylight as a source of interior lighting that drives human health, productivity, and happiness.
Since the pivotal discovery of the intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGC), and research that documents the ipRGC’s role in the human circadian cycle and health, physicians, researchers, scientists, engineers, and designers have worked together to develop and apply evidence-based design with the artful and beneficial application of daylight and views to modern buildings.

Daylight And Wellness
Today, the ever-growing body of research and design case studies continue to emphasize the importance of daylight and outside views for the psychological and physiological benefit of building occupants. Scientists at the Lighting Research Center (LRC), in Troy, NY report that quality exposure to daylight (as a source of interior illumination) results in improved occupant comfort, mood, and productivity, and decreased stress and rates of depression.
Research and evidence-based design activities show that providing building occupants with daylight provides the mental and visual stimulation necessary to regulate human circadian rhythms and the production of neurotransmitters, such as serotonin. The human circadian rhythms are the body’s natural clock. When your body is exposed to daylight, your brain releases neurotransmitters in response to the changing intensity and spectral content of daylight over the course of the day. Ultimately, these neurotransmitters play important biological roles in telling your body to wake up during daylight hours, and when darkness hits, enabling your body to fall asleep.
By exposing your body to daylight throughout the day, your healthy human circadian rhythm will have a significant role in regulating your sleep-wake cycle and have a positive influence on your eating habits and digestion, body temperature, hormone release, and other important bodily functions. Serotonin, sometimes known as the happy hormone, leaves us feeling more energized, happy, and well-rested while fighting and reducing stress, anxiety, depression, and potentially minimizing seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
The benefits of natural light don’t just apply to our physical well-being, but also to our psychological health and mood. As living beings, we feel the benefits of being exposed to daylight, and when we don’t have it, we crave daylight and views.
The end result is that psychological and physiological health go hand in hand, and access to daylight and views are key elements of a building’s design that improve the indoor environmental quality of a building for human wellness.
Daylight And Productivity
In addition to nurturing the health and wellness of occupants within a building, daylight-filled environments have proven to inspire and lead to a more productive atmosphere. This is because when employees are fulfilled in their workplace environment, they are more engaged, produce higher quality individual work, and are much happier in general, which creates a more enjoyable workspace.
A research poll of 1,614 North American employees found that over a third of employees feel that they don’t get enough natural light in their workspace. About 47% of employees admit they feel tired or very tired from the absence of natural light or a window at their office, and 43% report feeling gloomy because of the lack of light.
The same Future Workplace poll conducted for the Harvard Business Review found that 70% of people reported that access to natural light improved their work performance.
To this end, it’s no surprise that a recent report by sustainability consulting firm Stok titled “High Performance Buildings and the Evolution of the Workplace” identified daylighting as the No. 1 priority for employees.
Daylight As A Disinfectant
UV light has been used for decades as a natural disinfectant. It’s used to clean drinking water as well as naturally eradicate organisms that could be potentially harmful in healthcare facilities.
Now, a recent study published in the journal Microbiome has shown us that rooms exposed to daylight had fewer germs, a similar effect as UV light. In fact, the study revealed that the daylit rooms had about half the viable bacteria (those that are able to grow), compared to dark rooms.
Daylit rooms were also shown to have less of the types of bacteria that result from the shedding of human skin (including some that are known to cause respiratory disease), and more closely resembled outdoor bacterial communities. Concluding that daylighting may have been about visual comfort or broad health in the past, but now we can say daylighting influences air quality and works as a disinfectant, too.
Daylight, Energy Savings, And Sustainability
Facility executives understand how important it is to be environmentally responsible. As a result, many facilities choose to go green through sound daylighting strategies, and it’s easy to see why.
The buildings sector has a substantial carbon footprint when both direct and indirect emissions are taken into accounted. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the buildings and building construction sectors, combined, are responsible for 30% of total global final energy consumption and 27% of total energy sector CO2 emissions.
Natural light is the most sustainable lighting option available; it is also a free renewable resource that offers numerous incentives beyond knowing you are behaving in an environmentally responsible way.
Natural light is the most sustainable lighting option available; it is also a free renewable resource that offers numerous incentives beyond knowing you are behaving in an environmentally responsible way. Electricity continues to be the primary energy source for commercial buildings and single largest expense. Even setting aside the fact that electric lighting can impact negatively on productivity and consequently output and revenues, they are expensive to operate.
Today, highly efficient and advanced daylighting technologies are available to reduce the need for electric lighting during the day without causing heating or cooling problems, but actually improving it.
Digert, Ph.D., MIES, Vice President, Innovation and Market Development, Kingspan Light + Air | North America, has over 30 years of consulting and education experience working in the energy/lighting/daylighting design and research fields, specializing in the design and application of advanced lighting and daylighting systems for commercial building applications.
Do you have a comment? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below, or send an e-mail to the Editor at jen@groupc.com.
Click here for more facility management content related to Wellness.
It’s no secret that hospitals and health systems have been facing severe financial woes in the past couple years. These money problems have forced many providers to make what they likely felt were tough but necessary choices — such as shuttering underperforming service lines, laying off staff and using debt collection agencies to obtain payment from patients.
Some of these tactics have even invited negative scrutiny. However, a new report argued that commercial payers should shoulder some of the blame when it comes to how hospitals are managing their dire financial circumstances.
Compared to government payers, commercial payers take significantly longer to pay hospitals and deny claims at a higher frequency — often without a justifiable reason to do so — according to the report published by consulting firm Crowe. These delays mean that hospitals are waiting longer than they need to receive commercial payments — during a time when they need cash flow to be expedited, not needlessly delayed, the report said.
Crowe analyzed data from the more than 1,800 hospitals that use its revenue cycle analytics platform and found that about 45% of a typical hospital’s patient population is covered by a commercial health insurance carrier.
Commercially insured patients have conventionally been thought of as hospitals’ preferred population. This is because hospitals can negotiate prices with commercial payers, and these payers usually pay higher rates than government payers like Medicare and Medicaid. For the average net revenue per inpatient case, commercial plans pay $18,156.50 compared to $14,887.10 from Medicare. For outpatients, commercial plans pay $1,606.86 for the average patient case, compared to $707.30 paid by Medicare.
Reimbursement rates may be higher among commercial payers, but getting them to pay in a timely manner is an entirely different story, per the report. During the first quarter of this year, commercial payers initially denied 15.1% of inpatient and outpatient claims compared to 3.9% for Medicare over the same period, according to the report.
Crowe analyzed the claim denial category of prior authorization and precertification denials. These occur when a payer denies a claim based on their decision that a provider did not get prior approval for care before it was delivered or that the care rendered wasn’t necessary based on the patient’s medical diagnosis.
Last year, the prior authorization/precertification denial rate for inpatient claims among commercial payers was 2.8%, up from 2.4% in 2021. This rate increased to 3% during the first three months of 2023, but the denial rate for traditional Medicare was just 0.2% during the same period.
Another claim denial category that the report examined is the request for information (RFI). RFI denials happen when a payer decides not to process a claim because it is missing some type of required documentation, such as a signature or copy of the medical record. In this category, commercial payers’ denial rate is 12 times higher than Medicare, the report found.
Most of the claims that commercial payers deny eventually get paid. However, the administrative effort required for hospitals to turn an initially-denied claim into a payment costs a good deal of time and money — two things in short supply at hospitals
To obtain payment from a denied claim, a provider must investigate the claim, determine what they have to do to rectify the problem and resubmit the claim — a process that can take weeks — said Colleen Hall, the managing principal for Crowe’s healthcare consulting group, in a recent interview. This process creates “an aging accounts receivable situation” for the provider and delays them from receiving much-needed cash.
“There certainly are several for-profit insurers out there. I won’t name names, but I think that those for-profit entities are in direct conflict with the nonprofit hospitals. I don’t know what goes on in the for-profit payer side of things, but could there be actions that they’re deploying to delay payments? Potentially. There have certainly been denials that our clients, as providers, have to manage only to find were denied for no reason,” Hall declared.
In the first quarter of this year, about a third of the claims that providers submitted to commercial payers took more than three months to get paid, the report found.
It’s difficult for hospitals to gain steady financial footing when the payers that have the best reimbursement rates are holding onto a third of their claims payments for more than 90 days, Hall pointed out.
Photo: santima.studio, Getty Images
Oshi Health — a virtual care provider for patients with digestive disorders — announced its first contract with a commercial insurer on Thursday. The New York-based company has entered into a value-based contract that provides Aetna members with in-network access to its specialized treatment.
The partnership comes nearly two years after CVS Health, Aetna’s parent company, invested in Oshi as part of the startup’s Series A fundraising.
Founded in 2019, Oshi built a virtual-first care platform designed to help patients achieve lasting control over chronic digestive conditions. The company hires gastroenterologists, nurse practitioners, dieticians and GI-specialized behavioral healthcare providers to quickly reach a diagnosis and guide individualized treatment. Patients are also assigned a care coordinator, who can help them find in-network providers if they need services like a colonoscopy or endoscopy.
The startup prides itself on providing whole-person care, which includes often-neglected dietary and psychosocial interventions, Oshi CEO Sam Holliday said in a recent interview.
“Over the past decade, there’s been a recognition that many gastrointestinal disorders are actually triggered by the signaling between your gut and your brain. A whole class of GI conditions has actually been renamed as disorders of the gut-brain interaction, or DGBIs,” he explained. “Things like gut-directed cognitive behavioral therapy can really reframe patients’ thought patterns and dampen the brain signaling that causes their symptoms, making symptoms feel less severe.”
Dietary interventions and behavioral therapy are proven methods to alleviate GI patients’ symptoms, and they’re often more effective than medication, Holliday pointed out. But these services are rarely available to GI patients because they haven’t been reimbursed historically, he added.
That’s why these interventions are a core part of the care patients receive under Oshi’s new contract with Aetna.
“One of the challenges in GI is that there aren’t very good quality measures. Really, the main things we focus on as a country is getting people screened for colorectal cancer, But we don’t really have measures for what matters to patients, who are the people suffering. What we think is the best measure to use is symptom control,” Holliday explained.
The root cause of GI symptoms usually stems from dietary or behavioral health reasons, and traditional, medication-centric GI care does not address those underlying causes, he declared. Patients end up continually seeking care — and driving costs up — because their symptoms are still bothering them. Through Oshi’s value-based contract with Aetna, “the value aspect being measured is Oshi’s ability to reduce that utilization downstream,” Holliday said.
Oshi will measure its care teams’ ability to sustainably control patients’ symptoms through a mix of medication, dietary adjustments and gut-brain psychology interventions. The company will track metrics such as reductions in emergency department visits and patients’ reported symptoms.
“We get paid a certain amount as we’re providing the care. Then, if we’ve gotten to a good level of patient satisfaction, symptom control and reduced utilization at the end of the measurement period, we have a bonus opportunity. And if we don’t achieve certain levels, there is a downside,” Holliday explained.
Aetna shares in the upside if Oshi hits its goals, but the payer is protected against potential downside. If Oshi doesn’t achieve as good outcomes as the partners had hoped, Aetna won’t have to pay the startup the full amount for care, Holliday declared.
The partnership is in its first phase, meaning Aetna members can access Oshi’s services in the following six states: Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Photo: TLFurrer, Getty Images
Paragonix Technologies — a company that launched in 2010 as a response to the lack of innovation in the donor organ preservation and transport process — closed a Series B funding round on Tuesday. The $24 million round was led by Signet Healthcare Partners.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company provides transplant centers and organ procurement organizations (OPOs) with medical devices designed for the preservation and transportation of donor organs.
The traditional method of preservation requires the organ to be transported in a cooler of crushed ice. Due to unstable temperatures, many facilities that receive organs preserved in this manner report that they arrive frozen and damaged, said Paragonix CEO Lisa Anderson.
“Paragonix determined there was an opportunity for a more scientifically reproducible, measurable and reliable solution to transporting an organ from a donor to recipient,” she said. “We set out to create a new standard for organ preservation and transport that would provide the care and quality of handling commensurate with transporting such a valuable gift and improve patient outcomes worldwide.”
Paragonix’s devices are made from a series of interconnected systems that work together to provide a cool and sterile environment within a consistent range of 4-8° Celsius. The company sells three devices, each designed for a different organ (heart, lung and liver). All have been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration.
Each device works slightly differently based on specific user needs related to the organ type, Anderson said. For example, the heart preservation device has pouches filled with proprietary cooling solutions that keep the organ at optimal temperatures during transport. The heart is contained within a nested canister and is then housed in a wheeled shipper container that works to protect and insulate the inner contents.
All of Paragonix’s devices display the organ’s temperature while it is being transported. They also use bluetooth monitoring and tracking technology to allow surgeons to track the organ’s exact location throughout its journey, even in flight, Anderson pointed out.
Paragonix markets and sells its devices to transplant centers and OPOs across the U.S. and Europe. Last year, over one in five thoracic donor organs transplanted in the U.S. were preserved using a Paragonix device, Anderson declared. She also said that 19 out of the 30 largest U.S. heart transplant programs rely on Paragonix devices to safely preserve, track and transport organs to their intended recipients.
There are a few other companies that make devices to preserve donor organs, such as Organ Recovery Systems and Bridge to Life. But Anderson contended Paragonix’s devices are easier to use.
“Most other organ preservation devices are extremely complicated, labor intensive and require special personal or extensive training, while Paragonix’s devices are lightweight, user friendly, and a user can be trained in less than an hour,” she declared.
Anderson explained that her company’s main competition is the legacy way of transporting organs, as many organizations still receive damaged organs that were transported using the over-ice method. The medical industry needs to move away from this method of organ preservation because devices like the ones that Paragonix sells are clinically proven to improve patient outcomes and reduce the risk of post-surgical complications, she declared.
Picture: Getty Images, ThomasVogel
TORONTO, Jan. 30, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Lifeist Wellness Inc. (“Lifeist” or the “Company”) (TSXV: LFST) (FRANKFURT: M5B) (OTCMKTS: NXTTF), a health-tech company that leverages advancements in science and technology to build breakthrough companies that transform human wellness, today announced that its U.S. biosciences subsidiary Mikra Cellular Sciences Inc. (“Mikra”) has begun commercial scale production of a new and improved version of CELLF.
“Starting production of this new and improved version of CELLF is a major milestone following a lot of hard work behind the scenes by Mikra’s team both on R&D and sourcing of new packaging and materials,” said Meni Morim, CEO of Lifeist. “This advancement brings Mikra one step closer to shipping the new version to customers, and will help Mikra deliver on the promise of becoming a more meaningful contributor to Lifeist’s financial performance in 2023.”
Added Faraaz Jamal, CEO of Mikra and COO of Lifeist, “When we first created CELLF, we prioritized efficacy, potency and safety, with the goal of establishing Mikra as an innovator in the market. This meant we made cognizant sacrifices with the first version of the formula in order to assure that we were making a safe product that really worked and lived up to our standards. With a successful launch under our belts, and a loyal consumer base, we are now positioned to build on the prior innovations while making improvements based on heartfelt customer feedback. The result of this R&D journey is beyond our expectations, and we look forward to introducing these upgrades to established and new customers.”
The key improvements in the upgraded version of CELLF include:
- Significantly better taste
- Brand new, one-handed accessible sachet design
- Protective, environmentally friendly exterior packaging
- Now dairy-free & vegan with no impact to delivery technology
“The new version of CELLF effectively addresses the feedback we received with version one, removing most major barriers in the sales funnel to purchase and increasing the probability of both customer retention and winback as we continue to grow and nurture our repeat customer community,” said Jamal. “As we have recently seen, this incremental improvement has already opened up more distribution opportunities and we believe it will lead to higher gross margins and higher customer lifetime value.”
Concluded Jamal, “The evolution of CELLF was a necessary step to solidify it as Mikra’s flagship product and set the internal mindset that the key to business longevity is the absence of complacence. This is only the first of many strategic, iterative improvements we will make to our product suite to ensure our delivery meets or exceeds customer expectations.”
When production is complete, the new and improved formula will be available for purchase at wearemikra.com and will be the debut version of the product sold at GNC stores and .
About Lifeist Wellness Inc.
Sitting at the forefront of the post-pandemic wellness revolution, Lifeist leverages advancements in science and technology to build breakthrough companies that transform human wellness. Portfolio business units include: CannMart, which operates a B2B wholesale distribution business facilitating recreational cannabis sales to Canadian provincial government control boards including for CannMart Labs, a BHO extraction facility producing high margin cannabis 2.0 products; Australian Vapes, one of Australia’s largest online retailers of vaporizers and accessories; and Mikra, a biosciences and consumer wellness company developing and selling innovative therapies for cellular health.
Information on Lifeist and its businesses can be accessed through the links below:
lifeist.com
cannmart.com
roilty.co
australianvaporizers.com.au
wearemikra.com
Contacts
Meni Morim, Lifeist Wellness Inc., CEO
Matt Chesler, CFA, FNK IR, Investor Relations
Ph: 647-362-0390
Email: ir@lifeist.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release or has in any way approved or disapproved of the contents of this press release.
Forward Looking Information
This news release contains “forward-looking information” within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements contained herein that are not historical in nature contain forward-looking information. Forward-looking information can be identified by words or phrases such as “may”, “expect”, “likely”, “should”, “would”, “plan”, “anticipate”, “intend”, “potential”, “proposed”, “estimate”, “believe” or the negative of these terms, or other similar words, expressions and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions “may” or “will” happen.
The forward-looking information contained herein, including, without limitation, statements related to the anticipated shipping to customers of the improved version of CELLF and the anticipated contribution to Lifeist’s financial performance resulting from such sales during 2023, are made as of the date of this news release and is based on assumptions management believed to be reasonable at the time such statements were made, including, without limitation, expectations that and the improved version of CELLF will be available for purchase as anticipated and in a timely manner and gain market acceptance along with the expansion of the nutraceutical, its expectation that the market for nutraceutical products will remain strong and will continue to grow as currently anticipated, the nutraceutical market will continue to be a multi-billion dollar high-margin market, the introduction of new products, brands and distribution channels will generate additional awareness of Mikra’s existing and future products and increase revenue. While we consider these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to management, there is no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. By its nature, forward-looking information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. A variety of factors, including known and unknown risks, many of which are beyond our control, could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking information in this press release. Such factors include, without limitation: unanticipated production issues or delays with respect to the improved version of CELLF; the failure to make the improved version of CELLF available for distribution and sale as anticipated in 2023, the Company’s inability to continue to develop Mikra’s business as a whole, including its inability to increase distribution through retail and online channels, unanticipated changes to current regulations that would adversely impact Mikra’s business, unforeseen developments that would delay Mikra’s ability to develop and sell any nutraceutical products, the risk that the expected demand for nutraceutical products in general and those of Mikra in particular, including consumer uptake, does not develop as anticipated and risks relating to the Company’s ability to execute its business strategy and the benefits realizable therefrom. Additional risk factors can also be found in the Company’s current MD&A which has been filed under the Company’s SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.
Source: Lifeist Wellness Inc.
The rift between hospitals and commercial insurers is age old. But a new survey shows the relationship isn’t going to improve any time soon.
The American Hospital Association (AHA) survey, released Wednesday, found that 78% of hospitals and health systems said their relationship with commercial insurers is getting worse. Less than 1% said their relationship is improving and the rest said it has stayed the same.
The survey included 304 respondents representing 772 hospitals. All of the respondents are members of AHA.
One of the main culprits behind the worsening relationship appears to be certain practices of commercial insurers, such as prior authorization. The report found that 95% of hospitals and health systems said staff time spent seeking prior authorization approval is increasing. Meanwhile, 62% of prior authorization denials are eventually overturned, the report found.
Aside from time spent on administrative procedures, costs may also be a factor in the relationship souring. A whopping 84% said the cost of complying with insurer policies is also increasing.
“Misuse of utilization management tools like prior authorization has several negative implications for patients and the health care system,” AHA said in the report. “Prior authorization denials can result in delays of necessary treatment for patients and ultimately lead to unexpected medical bills. The extensive approval process that doctors and nurses must go through adds wasted dollars to the health care system through overuse of prior authorization, inefficient submission processes, excessive requests for unnecessary documentation and the need to reprocess inappropriate payment and coverage denials.”
AHA also takes issue with claims denials, stating that commercial health insurers are “increasingly delaying and denying coverage of medically necessary care.” However, 50% of claims denials that are appealed are overturned, AHA said.
There are financial consequences to these delays and denials, AHA stated. The survey found that 50% of hospitals have more than $100 million in accounts receivable for claims that are older than six months, totaling $6.4 billion in delayed or potentially unpaid claims among the 772 hospitals in the survey. Another 35% of respondents said they’ve lost $50 million or more in revenue because of denied claims.
“These payment delays and denials for medically necessary care have serious implications for the financial stability of health care providers and compound fiscal challenges plaguing our health care system,” AHA said.
The report also provided several policy recommendations, including streamlining the prior authorization process and increasing oversight on insurers. Additionally, the organization sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor, calling for action against commercial payers.
“Health care coverage must work better for patients and the providers who care for them. We urge you to take additional steps to ensure adequate oversight of commercial health plans, including those offering Medicare Advantage plans, this open enrollment season,” the letter stated. “Individuals and families should feel assured that the plan they choose during open enrollment will actually be there for them when they need care.”
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) declined to comment publicly on AHA’s survey, but previously told MedCity News that commercial insurers’ practices are needed to reduce expenses for patients.
“Health insurance providers advocate for the people they serve by ensuring that the right care is delivered at the right time in the right setting — and covered at a cost that patients can afford. Prior authorization prevents waste and improves affordability for patients, consumers, and employers,” Kristine Grow, AHIP spokesperson, previously said. “Health insurance providers have a comprehensive view of the health care system and each patient’s medical claims history and work to ensure that medications or treatments prescribed by clinicians are safe, effective, and affordable for patients. This results in better outcomes and lower costs for patients.”
Photo: santima.studio, Getty Images
The city’s plans to use $1.2 million from an upcoming sale of city-owned land to cover a shortfall in the Senior Wellness Center have stalled.
And with the county backing out of the deal, it may soon be purchased by a buyer in the private sector, members of the council-led Finance Committee learned Thursday.
The center is under construction and is a quality of life project funded in part by the voter approved Norman Forward Sales Tax fund, a half-cent special sales tax.
In a land swap with the Norman Regional Health Authority, the city acquired 718 N. Porter Ave.
At one time, the council discussed using it as a homeless resource facility and sobering center but later decided to sell it to the county for health clinic space, City Manager Darrel Pyle reported to the council last March.
At the time, Pyle said the dollars would be discretionary for the council to use.
In April, the council agreed to use the proceeds of that sale to cover the shortfall for the project.
The center was budgeted at $12.4 million, with $7.6 million from the Norman Forward fund and an added $4.8 million in Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security funds to cover a shortfall.
Staff told the council in April that rising construction prices attributed to the supply chain failures after the COVD-19 pandemic and inflation brings the project short once again at $1.6 million.
The spike comes after staff “value engineered” cuts to soft costs in 2021 when it faced an initial shortfall due to the rising construction materials spike.
Parks and Recreation Director Jason Olsen said at the time, costs were up 20%.
City Financial Services Director Anthony Francisco said Thursday that construction costs were coming down from highs experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“They’re starting to level off,” Parks and Recreation Director Jason Olsen added.
Francisco said the $1.2 million could be taken from the general fund until the property sells.
Ward 7 councilor Stephen Holman speculated it would not take long for it to move off the market, as the area is improving.
“I would guess that even if the county doesn’t end up buying into this, especially after the Porter streetscape project is finished, this piece of property would be valuable to somebody who might want it,” Holman said.
County backs off
Cleveland County Commissioner Chairman Rod Cleveland said the deal is dead in the water after no public discussion to purchase 718 N. Porter emerged before the board.
While the possible purchase has appeared on the county’s potential expenditures using American Rescue Plan Act money, Cleveland said he was disinclined to purchase it with those funds, nor complete the purchase on behalf of the county health department without more input from the department.
Cleveland said he has had no discussions with the health department expressing interest in the property.
“If there truly is a need by the health department, then we truly need to be exploring all opportunities and other buildings or build to suite on health department property,” Cleveland said.

From left: Ayush Jain of Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund; Ayse McCracken of Ignite Healthcare and INNOVATE Health Ventures; Max Rosett of Research Bridge Partners; and Dr. Hubert Zajicek of Health Wildcatters
When it comes to investment, including healthcare and biotech, companies in the Bay area, Boston and New York tend to get the lion’s share of venture capital. But in recent years there’s been greater attention to investment in companies beyond those regions. The Covid-19 pandemic also played a significant role as people were forced to limit travel and use Zoom to connect their In a panel discussion at INVEST Digital Health, healthcare and life science investors discussed investment strategies and why they are placing their funding bets in states like Texas, Indiana, Utah and Arkansas.
The panel, Investing between the coasts, moderated by Dr. Hubert Zajicek, CEO, partner and co-founder of Health Wildcatters, offered a window into how investors are finding companies that match their investment theses, even in states that are not thought of as startup hubs. The panel was sponsored by Lyda Hill Philanthropies.
“We were the most active investor in Arkansas last year,” said Ayush Jain, a senior associate with Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. The fund, which was started by Steve Case of AOL fame, has made investments in more than 200 companies in 40 states since 2017.
The video platform Zoom has made an indelible impact towards democratizing investment across the country, according to Ayse McCracken, a founder and board chair with Ignite Healthcare in Houston and president of eNNOVATE Health Ventures. Ignite focuses on women-led digital health and medical device startups, while eNNOVATE invests in a broad array of startups across the continent of Africa.
McCracken said it was one of the unintended consequences of the pandemic.
“[Zoom] has allowed us to connect with entrepreneurs all across the country and all across the world and match them with mentors across the U.S. All of a sudden, we were working with an expanded ecosystem coast to coast, and we were working with startups coming from all across the country. We have eight of the 22 companies [in our latest cohort] that are coming from the Texas market — San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Houston, which is great. We’d love to see Texas continue to grow. Denver has been another location where we’re seeing a number of entrepreneurs come from, also Minneapolis.”
Max Rosett, a principal with Research Bridge Partners, conceded that Zoom has been useful for connecting with and keeping in touch with portfolio companies in areas that would have otherwise been costly to travel to from his offices in Salt Lake City.
“This is going to sound incredibly trite and yet it’s incredibly real. Now that it’s okay to have board meetings over Zoom, life is much easier,” Rosett said.
Research Bridge Partners, which focuses on life science companies, is trying to chip away at what it refers to on its website as the “geographic misalignment” of venture capital in the Bay area and Boston. It also calls attention to trends among larger venture capital firms of creating lab-to-market systems to advance ideas towards financial liquidity that make it tougher for midcontinent principal investigators to access, because these firms favor institutional brand and geographical proximity to their offices.
Although everyone is pleased that the worst of the pandemic appears to be over, Zajicek said that in the past two years the accelerator has received a record number of applications from all over the world, which has spurred the development of a hybrid program combining in-person and Zoom-based interactions with startups in its cohorts. It has added an international flavor to its startup portfolio. Add to that the accelerator’s advantageous base in Dallas, in close proximity to an airport with the most direct flights in the country.
“It has flattened the world in non-trivial ways,” Zajicek said.
Health Wildcatters recently moved its offices to Pegasus Park, a 13-floor building that offers lots of space for healthcare and life science startups to work and connect with investors and collaboration partners.
Jain agreed that Zoom can offer a useful complement to in-person meetings and has made it easier to foster relationships with startups. He emphasized the importance of regional startup incubator and accelerator spaces, which frequently host demo days and other events to bring investors and startups together. They can also prove useful for investors from out of town seeking to plug into the regional startup ecosystem.
“If there’s a city that you gravitate towards, whether it’s because of a particular industry strength, or a personal connection, those are factors to leverage when you build relationships in those cities and find deal flow there,” Jain said. “That’s something we lean on a lot. We’re not lead investors. So we rely on finding opportunities to invest in startups, mostly through local regional investors, accelerators, incubators, places like Pegasus Park, where there’s a ton of companies. There’s some institutions in other cities like this. I think finding those and really honing in on them and building relationships is important.”