Patients more willing to seek care if they can see cost on smartphone
By Laura Lovett January 15, 2019
Surprise medical bills have been a concern of many consumers across the country but a new survey found that being able to check the cost of services — say, through a mobile app — could ease consumer concern and lead to more patients getting treatment. Today Metova, a mobile and IoT company, released survey results indicating that 80 percent of patients surveyed would be more likely to visit a...
Yelp, California Health Care Foundation form partnership to improve maternity care
By Jeff Lagasse July 27, 2017
More than 500,000 births occur each year in the state of California, but deciding where to get care can often be a difficult process for consumers. That's where a new partnership between Yelp and the California Health Care Foundation comes in. Thanks to the partnership, maternity care measures are now being displayed for the roughly 250 hospitals that deliver babies in the state. These measures...
Cambia invests $5M in price transparency company MDSave
By Jonah Comstock August 11, 2016
MDSave, a Nashville, Tennessee-based healthcare transparency company, secured a $5 million investment from Cambia Health, a holding company that owns a number of large insurance plans, MobiHealthNews has learned. "It was a strategic investment by Cambia to help MDSave expand our portfolio of our payer services that we offer," MDSave CEO Paul Ketchel told MobiHealthNews. "We have a partnership...
SilverVue raises funding from GE Ventures for post-acute care finder app
Sandy, Utah-based SilverVue has received an undisclosed round of funding led by Pritzker Group Venture Capital and GE Ventures, with participation from Epic Ventures. "Empowering patients to make more informed decisions about their medical care is more than our business, it's our passion," Will West, CEO and founder of SilverVue, said in a statement. "Hundreds of healthcare providers have...
Following layoffs last week Aetna merges iTriage with WellMatch
Aetna has merged its Denver-based health app-maker subsidiary iTriage with its cost transparency business, WellMatch, to form one team. The move follows lay offs across four Aetna businesses, an iTriage spokesperson confirmed to MobiHealthNews. The iTriage app, which has been downloaded more than 15 million times, helps consumers connect with the right care provider via a symptom navigator. It's...
HealthiestYou raises $30M for employee wellness, telemedicine app
By Aditi Pai November 12, 2015
Scottsdale, Arizona-based HealthiestYou, which offers a health app through employers, raised $30 million from Frontier Capital. Employees can use the app to access HealthiestYou's location-aware provider directory to read reviews, ratings and background information, compare prescription pricing for more than 5,000 drugs at more than 100,000 pharmacies, and receive customized alerts that help the...
Study finds vast disagreement between healthcare quality rating lists
By Jonah Comstock March 4, 2015
Healthgrades was one of the ratings looked at in the study. As payors increasingly consider giving patients price transparency tools to compare hospitals, there are also a number of groups looking to provide comparison tools for hospital quality. But a new study in Health Affairs shows that those comparison tools, even from seemingly reputable sources, are wildly inconsistent. "To better...
Aetna partners with Newtopia, adds price transparency to iTriage
By Jonah Comstock February 18, 2015
Aetna announced this week a collaboration with Newtopia that's moved out of the pilot phase and into full implementation. It also quietly updated its iTriage app by adding price comparison features for select users. Last December at the mHealth Summit, iTriage President Jim Greiner mentioned to MobiHealthNews that iTriage was planning to start focusing less on scale and more on adding new...
Execs point to healthcare billing, culture shift as biggest factors for change
By Aditi Pai December 3, 2014
athenahealth Director of Corporate Strategy Emily Tyson The healthcare system has been changing steadily since the inception of digital health, but at the MassTLC Healthcare Conference in Boston this week, panelists pointed to the changes in healthcare billing and the shift away from the traditional doctor's office culture as the factors that have opened up the most opportunities for new...
Medigo gets $6.2 million for global price transparency
By Jonah Comstock December 3, 2014
Medigo, a Berlin-based medical travel startup, has raised $6.2 million (5 million euros) from Accel Partners. The company announced the funding at the same time as its US and UK launch, and will use the money to expand into additional markets. The company previously raised $2.4 million from Atlantic Internet and other angel investors, so this raise brings their total funding just shy of $9...