HLTH 2023, Day 1: WeightWatchers CEO defends telehealth direction

The HLTH 2023 conference kicked off Sunday in sunny Las Vegas, where innovative companies from across healthcare will come together to share strategies, network and plot the industry’s future. Speakers and presenters this year include General Catalyst, CVS Health, Kroger Health, Amazon, Geisinger and many more.

Follow here for updates throughout the day on the latest happenings from the conference.

Missed a day? Catch up here.

- HLTH 2023, Day 2: Google, Amazon and more presentations on tap

- HLTH 2023, Day 3: Microsoft, Abbott and other presentations on tap

10 p.m. CT: WeightWatchers CEO defends company’s telehealth GLP-1 direction

WeightWatchers’ push into telehealth and prescribing glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist, or GLP-1, medications represents a major shift for the company, CEO Sima Sistani acknowledged during a keynote address at HLTH. Sistani said the company had received mixed feedback on the new direction. But she offered no apologies about offering different weight-loss solutions, including injectable GLP-1 medications.

“There isn’t one way to take care of your weight health,” Sistani said. “By opening up new ways to manage weight health and combining medications with healthy habits, we can help more people access tools that actually work for them.”

In March, WeightWatchers acquired weight-loss telehealth provider Sequence for $106 million to offer users access to drugs like Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Trulicity. Sistani said that telehealth has allowed WeightWatchers to serve members who felt bias at the doctor’s office over their weight.

The popularity of GLP-1s has led to a growing number of weight-loss entrants in the virtual health industry, which has some traditional clinicians worried about the types of care being offered to patients via these platforms. Sistani said that while GLP-1 drugs have been intensely debated, they work very well and have high efficacy rates.

—Gabriel Perna

9:45 p.m. CT: How Walgreens, Hims & Hers want to disrupt healthcare

The approaches Hims & Hers and Walgreens are taking to disrupt the healthcare industry may differ, but executives from each retailer agree on the challenges: Rising healthcare costs and growing provider shortages call for a change in how healthcare is delivered.

At Walgreens, the retailer is updating its leadership team as it seeks to change how its pharmacists are reimbursed, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kevin Ban said during a panel discussion Sunday. “We will continue to bring talent on board that can help us realize that goal,” Ban said. He expects the next Walgreens CEO to have “deep experience in healthcare and in how healthcare services are delivered.”

“When you think about pharma and its dispensing mode, it’s a pure fee-for-service type of model,” Ban said. “You dispense, and get paid for dispensing. We’re having to be creative about how we can provide more services and do that with payers.”

Digital pharmacy Hims & Hers is leveraging its core base of customers seeking erectile dysfunction medication to screen for heart disease, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Patrick Carroll told attendees. ED is a common early warning sign for cardiac disease, so for those who screen positive, the company prescribes preventive medicine, such as statins. The company is also looking to grow its compounding pharmacy relationships to offer personal prescriptions for enrollees and expand its virtual mental health offerings, he said.

—Nona Tepper

7:30 p.m. CT: Dr. Marc Harrison to head General Catalyst's latest company

Venture capital firm General Catalyst has tapped former Intermountain Health CEO Dr. Marc Harrison to lead a new company focused on health system transformation. The company, Health Assurance Transformation Corp., or HATco, was launched publicly by Harrison and General Catalyst CEO Hemant Taneja at the HLTH conference on Sunday. Read the full story.
 

3 p.m. CT: Uber, Optum partner on Medicare Advantage benefits

Uber will partner with UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Financial payment arm to allow Medicare Advantage enrollees to use their health benefits to pay for rides to and from medical appointments, grocery shopping, prescription pickup and more, the ride-sharing company announced in a news release Sunday.

This represents the first time Uber has partnered with a supplemental benefits payment platform, said Caitlin Donovan, global head at Uber Health, in an interview at the HLTH conference. Donovan declined to disclose financial terms of the partnership. Uber Health anticipates expanding the partnership to Optum Financial’s commercial and Medicaid enrollees.

“Supplemental benefits are so often siloed and require patients to navigate care in different ways, calling a lot of different call centers or reading benefits packages if they can find them,” Donovan said. “This really offers the convenience of Uber while still being embedded in the benefits ecosystem and still being affordable and reimbursed for patients.”

Uber has partnered with 4,000 physician’s offices and several Medicaid and Medicare Advantage insurers to serve as a non-emergency transport provider, Donovan said. The company has also partnered with a few self-insured employers to offer transportation as a health benefit for lower-income workers, she said.

Traditionally, insurers or doctor's offices would request rides for patients. With the new Optum partnership, Medicare Advantage enrollees will request Uber’s services themselves through the Optum Financial benefits card. Medicare Advantage insurers that contract with Optum Financial will set the individual parameters of each individual’s benefit, Donovan said. Uber has partnered with other non-emergency transportation providers to offer vehicles with wheelchair access or other special services for patients, Donovan said.

Looming federal cuts to Medicare Advantage payments in 2024 are driving more insurers to look for ways to simplify their supplemental benefits structures, she said.

—Nona Tepper

2 p.m. CT: Main Street Health nabs $315M from Oak HC/FT, MA plans

On Sunday at HLTH, rural-focused startup Main Street Health said it closed a $315 million financing round. Main Street works with primary care clinics in rural areas, providing them with health navigators and data analytics tools to help the practices move into value-based care. Venture capital firm Oak HC/FT was the lead investor on the round and was joined by five national Medicare Advantage plans—UnitedHealthcare, Humana, Elevance Health, CVS Health and Centene—as well as some of Main Street’s provider partners.

Main Street partners with more than 900 clinics across 18 states, and has plans to expand into an additional eight states in 2024, according to a news release. Main Street’s navigators help patients schedule preventive screenings, remind them to pick up their medications and assist with needs related to social determinants of health. Brad Smith, former director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, is CEO of Main Street Health.

The $315 million represents one of the biggest deals in what has otherwise been a challenging year for digital health funding.

—Gabriel Perna

12 p.m. CT: Let the presentations begin

The HLTH conference is open, and the ordered chaos has officially begun.

The estimated 10,000 attendees are trickling into the West Gate of the Las Vegas Convention Center and waiting in orderly lines to access their QR code to sign in to the digital health forum. Packs of workers from the countless digital health startups wander the Convention Center halls, glancing at maps for where the exhibit hall, speaker meeting rooms and free breakfast areas are located. Speakers are getting mic’d up. No one seems to want the complimentary ginger juice, but the delightfully strong coffee is in high demand.

Presentations on tap today include “Retail and Health, Sitting in a Tree,” with Amazon Pharmacy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Vin Gupta, Best Buy Health Chief Operating Officer Chemu Lang’at, Hims & Hers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Patrick Carroll and Walgreens Boots Alliance Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kevin Ban. Speakers from health system Kaiser Permanente, private equity firm General Catalyst and software giant Microsoft  will  be presenting at separate sessions.

—Nona Tepper

10 a.m. CT: What’s on tap at HLTH 2023?

The annual HLTH conference convenes today in Las Vegas, bringing together executives from health systems, insurance and digital health companies as well as investors, analysts and other industry stakeholders. Check out who's speaking, changes from 2022 and other helpful tips from Modern Healthcare's preview of the event.