A glance a the well being tech exec main Medicare
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As of final week, Chris Klomp is accountable for the Middle for Medicare. Not like predecessors, he’s not a coverage wonk. Klomp was previously the CEO of well being IT firm Collective Medical, which he bought, in 2020, for a whole bunch of tens of millions of {dollars}. He additionally served on the boards of well being tech corporations like Maven Clinic and Nomi Well being.
As Klomp ready to take the position, I spoke with dozens of buddies, former colleagues, and coverage consultants to get a deal with on how precisely he may method the tasks. Many times, folks advised me he hopes to “modernize” how Medicare makes use of expertise and information to enhance how this system works, and particularly, to hunt for value financial savings. My profile gives an early have a look at a few of Klomp’s tech-related aspirations. I additionally discover how he may reply to necessary questions round the way forward for Medicare Benefit, and the way he’s rallied behind a few of well being secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s priorities.
Finish of compounded GLP-1s places sufferers in a bind
Whereas branded GLP-1 medication like Wegovy and Mounjaro had been in scarcity, sufferers with weight problems or diabetes might get hold of compounded copies at a fraction of the associated fee. With the shortages formally over, a few of these sufferers are out of luck.
In a brand new story, STAT’s Katie Palmer and Elaine Chen report on the troublesome scenario for a lot of sufferers who can not afford the drugs, even after drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk began providing them at decrease costs. Learn extra right here
Medical system makers weigh in on tarrifs
Following the Trump administration’s announcement of giant tariffs, a number of the largest medical system producers have began to inform shareholders how the taxes on imports may affect their companies. STAT’s Bob Herman stories on what corporations like Boston Scientific, Resmed, Penumbra, and extra have stated thus far. How will they keep away from or offset the impacts? Learn extra right here
What occurs to the previous chatbots in an LLM world?
Woebot will shut down its chatbot psychological well being app on the finish of June, Behavioral Well being Enterprise reported final week. Woebot initially launched its bot on Fb Messenger in 2017, lengthy earlier than giant language fashions made the event of AI bots trivial. Whereas the corporate makes use of a pleasant chat interface, the programming below the hood is pre-scripted and designed to offer dependable psychological well being therapy for anxiousness and different gentle psychological well being points in a predictable approach.
Because the LLM growth, the corporate has taken the defensible place that generative AI is dangerous to make use of for psychological well being. That’s true! However that principled place additionally occurred to help the corporate’s long-standing method to expertise. Woebot raised $90 million in 2021 and has spent some huge cash growing the tech and testing it in medical trials. As I wrote in STAT Well being Tech in August 2023, the corporate was experimenting with LLMs in restricted methods however remained dedicated to its core method.
From afar, it’s troublesome to evaluate the power of Woebot’s enterprise. The corporate introduced some offers round making variations of its bot out there to well being organizations and employers. In 2023, it deserted growth of a prescription model of its expertise to deal with postpartum melancholy, because the enterprise of prescription digital therapeutics proved troublesome.
Woebot has chugged alongside, however folks’s expectations have modified — and importantly, most likely, so have the expectations of traders. Dangerous or not, researchers and corporations are plowing forward with LLM-based psychological well being expertise. Plus, a bot is only one dimension of different choices now. For instance, digital psychological well being firm Headspace just lately launched its personal AI bot that matches into its suite of self-guided psychological well being instruments.
At this level we don’t know what lies forward for Woebot the corporate. Perhaps they’ll quickly launch an LLM product supported by an enormous fundraise. However there could also be clues within the path of Wysa, an organization that developed an identical psychological well being app to Woebot. Final yr, Wysa introduced Copilot, a collection of automated instruments meant to work alongside a human therapist. Earlier this yr, Wysa merged with digital psychological well being firm April Well being.
What we’re studying
- With the FDA in turmoil, the ‘revolving door’ with business is spinning quicker, STAT
- How the state despatched Californians’ private well being information to LinkedIn, CalMatters
- DeepSeek’s “Low-Price” Adoption Throughout China’s Hospital Techniques, JAMA
