In our most recent Forbes article, we break down the 3 key ways in which digital biomarkers are poised to disrupt “traditional” genomic and proteomic biomarkers, and what a fully-digital 22nd century might look like.
TLDR: CMS head, Seema Verma, reaffirmed telehealth industry optimism last week, contending that she “can’t imagine going back” to pre-COVID telehealth restrictions. “People recognize the value of this, so it seems like it would not be a good thing to force our beneficiaries to go back to in-person visits,” Verma said during a virtual event hosted by STAT News. Payors and legislators, however, will need to align on best practices and allowable reimbursement amounts relative to traditional in-person visits, which have been at parity during COVID.
So what? Hospital margins have been squeezed by COVID, with healthcare administrators speculating that independent health systems will be swallowed up in post-pandemic M&As. While recouping these losses in the aftermath, hospitals may fight to maximize in-person visits, which have associated facility fees and allow for additional procedures (e.g., labs, imaging). However, mounting pressure from patients in a reimbursement-friendly environment may leave providers no choice but continue supporting significant virtual visit volumes. Virtual visits for Medicare patients have soared from a few thousand per week to over 1.3M per week since COVID’s onset, while private payor claims for virtual visits skyrocketed nearly 45x year-over-year. The momentum from both public and private payors has pushed a bipartisan coalition of 30 senators to release a letter urging Senate leadership to make current telehealth policies permanent. Though reimbursement for virtual visits is unlikely to remain at parity with in-person visits following the pandemic, evolution of a broader suite of remote care technologies are likely to support expansion of virtual care beyond collection of a consultation fee, providing opportunity for hospitals to drive up margins and increase total patient populations.
TLDR: Last week, telemedicine virtual visit and chatbot company Babylon Health experienced a data breach that resulted in three patients mistakenly receiving recordings of other patients’ consultations. The company reported that a software issue caused the breach and ensured no external security threats were at play.
So what? This incident doesn’t come as a first for Babylon, and follows a trend of growing cynicism around telehealth risks, including privacy and security, malpractice claims, health disparities and equity of access. Although telehealth platforms are presumably more vulnerable to software issues in these early days of scaling, they may increase vulnerability to malicious attacks and security breaches, as they expose specific vendors’ weaknesses, and diminish patient confidence and trust in telehealth solutions, which already stand at a tipping point for sustained adoption. Other telehealth and remote monitoring companies would do well to use Babylon’s mishap as an opportunity to re-evaluate the robustness of internal and external privacy protections.
TLDR: Using real-world data from a French national claims database, Abbott analyzed ~75K FreeStyle Libre CGM users’ HbA1C levels, and diabetes- and general acute events over the course of a year. The study found average HbA1C reductions of 0.9 and 0.6 percentage points among non-insulin users and long-term insulin users, respectively, over a 6-month window. Additionally, Abbott demonstrated a ~30% drop in diabetes-related acute events among FreeStyle Libre users and a 13% drop in all-cause hospitalizations.
So what? Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are an essential hardware component of remote diabetes patient management, a ~$6B market. Digital diabetes management remains one of the best-established, well-funded segments of the digital health market with perhaps the nearest-term path to at-scale revenue realization. Recent partnerships in the space aim to create an end-to-end solution leveraging CGM hardware and software solutions for trends monitoring, live coaching, and insights delivery (e.g., Dexcom-Livongo, Dexcom-Onduo, Abbott-Omada). This end-to-end digital patient management approach has led to robust funding, valuation, and revenue realization (see Livongo's Q1 earnings call) for “software” companies in the space, providing a model for other therapeutic areas to follow.
Headlines curated weekly by DeciBio's digital health team
Chris Lew
Senior Associate
Fanny Anderson
Associate
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