It makes sense that when care navigation prioritizes the patient and better links them to care by reducing barriers and smoothing out the road to seeing a provider, the patient experiences better outcomes. Better outcomes also translates to fewer hospital readmissions, saving money for both patients and their employers.

Accolade added Equip to its Trusted Partner Ecosystem, a collection of health vendors vetted by Accolade that its customers can decide to contract with. Equip virtually connects patients struggling with an eating disorder with a five person care team, which includes a medical physician, dietician, therapist, peer mentor and family mentor.

Accolade added Lyra Health to its Trusted Partner Ecosystem, a collection of health vendors vetted by Accolade that employers who work with the company can choose to contract with. Lyra Health is the second behavioral health company to join the ecosystem.

Blue Shield of California’s new health plan, Virtual Blue, gives members virtual access to primary care through Accolade and virtual access to specialty care through TeleMed2U. If needed, they can also receive in-person care through the payer’s PPO network.

Possible strategies for employers to reduce disparities include addressing social determinants of health, improving care navigation, leveraging virtual care and upgrading plan offerings, the authors of a Harvard Business Review report said.

Employers are having a difficult time navigating all the point solutions in healthcare. But it’s not necessarily a bad thing, as its generating more competition and forcing companies to get creative. Several experts discussed the topic at MedCity’s Invest Digital Health conference.

Employee benefits and the consumerization of healthcare are the themes for the INVEST Digital Health conference September 28 at Pegasus Park in Dallas. Be part of the conversation on how companies and employees are using health benefit tools to reduce healthcare costs. Register today!

A battle of ideas from two prominent health tech CEOs came to life at the recently-concluded HLTH conference in Boston. It’s a substantive debate on solving healthcare’s entrenched problems and one worth having.

The pandemic made collaboration necessary between stakeholders that otherwise tend to be at odds with each other. But as partnerships grow, providers, payers and pharma companies must ensure they are working toward a clear-cut common goal, according to panelists at HIMSS 21 Digital.

Care navigation company Accolade struck an agreement to buy telehealth startup PlushCare for $450 million. The goal is to support primary care physicians with information about a patient’s health and benefits, CEO Rajeev Singh said. 

McKesson Ventures is one of the most active investors in the biopharma software sector with Komodo Health, Evidation and M2Gen among its portfolio companies. 

Benefits navigation startup Accolade acquired second opinion startup 2nd.MD for $460 million. With little overlap between the two companies, the deal is expected to increase Accolade’s total addressable market by $22 billion.

Shawn Wagoner, chief revenue officer of insurance startup Bind Benefits, and Michael Yang, managing partner of OMERS Ventures, debated the best approach to help patients pick their insurance benefits.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, rising unemployment, and 2020’s other woes, healthcare technology firms continue to go public. So far, six health tech firms have already gone public in 2020.  

Employee benefits startup Accolade went public on Thursday. The company began trading at $35 per share, above its initial price of $22 per share.

Employee benefits platform Accolade disclosed the share price for its planned IPO. The company plans to price its IPO at $21 per share, for just over 10 million shares.

Accolade, a platform designed to boost employee engagement with their health benefits, filed preliminary paperwork for an IPO. The company plans to be listed on Nasdaq as ACCD

Humana hopes to improve employee engagement through its partnership with employee benefits tech company Accolade even as research shows that many benefit programs are not effective.

The acquisition enabled the development of Accolade Total Care, a product meant to ease the headache of finding a high-quality physician by making provider quality and cost measures available to both Accolade members and the company’s care concierges.

Michael Yang spent nearly a decade at Comcast Ventures helping to build a West Coast investment presence for the Philadelphia-based company. Now he’s charged with a similar mission for a $71 billion Canadian pension plan.

While healthcare costs for employees have risen around 5 percent for the past few years, Collective Health clients actually saw their medical trend decrease by 0.3 percent from 2016 and 2017.

The company, which tackles employee healthcare benefits, is working to improve the user experience by bringing capabilities like a mobile app to the table.

New investors taking part in the round included private equity firm Cross Creek Advisors and Madeira Tech Partners.

Andreessen Horowitz led the Series E round with participation from Madrona Venture Group. It was the second part of a round that has raised more than $90 million.