Will the U.S. reach herd immunity in 2021? The Biden Administration certainly hopes so. I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and we’ll explore that and other important news in this week’s Top Stories.
The push continues to get more Americans vaccinated against COVID-19, and the Biden Administration has set a new goal: Getting 70% of American adults at least one vaccine dose by July 4. According to Healthcare Finance News, (https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/biden-sets-new-goal-70-adults-getting-covid-19-vaccine-july-4) the plan is to shift the focus to accessibility, with same-day and walk-in vaccinations being offered by that time. The U.S. will also redirect resources from FEMA to establish more mobile and pop-up vaccination clinics, and will ship new allocations of the vaccine to rural health clinics. The plan calls for a reallocation of a significant amount of funds, including $250 million slated to go to community-based organizations so they can hire workers to increase vaccine access for underserved communities.
Ransomware in 2020 continued to be a threat, and many cases resulted in lawsuits, a new report shows. As we see in Healthcare IT News, (https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/healthcare-hackers-demanded-average-ransom-46m-last-year-says-bakerhostetler), healthcare was one of the industries most affected by tracked ransomware incidents, second only to education. And for organizations covered by the report, the average initial ransomware demand was a whopping $4.5 million. Ransomware can be especially devastating at a time when healthcare system resources are already strained from the effects of COVID-19, and while the FBI has advised security leaders not to pay out ransoms, some do so anyway out of perceived necessity.
Finally this week, employer health benefits management platform Collective Health has scored $280 million in Series F funding. Collective Health brings together companies’ various health benefits into one platform to let employers manage their offerings while assisting employees in navigating their healthcare; MobiHealthNews reports (https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/collective-health-scores-280m-scale-employer-health-benefits-platform) that the latest infusion of cash values the company at $1.5 billion. The San Francisco-based startup plans to use the funding to scale its platform.
I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and this has been Top Stories.