<table style="border:1px solid #adadad; background-color: #F3F1EC; color: #666666; padding:8px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; line-height:16px; margin-bottom:6px;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:20px;font-weight:bold;">Health Tech | Fierce Healthcare</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td> </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/finance/healthcare-dealmakers-uconn-health-grows-centene-subsidiaries-merge-and-more" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Healthcare Dealmakers—Orlando Health's Alabama push continues</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 5th 2026, 13:46</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.208121827411167" morss_score="112.49877736429062">
<p><em>Healthcare mergers and acquisitions are in no short supply as providers, health tech companies, payers and other industry players look to expand their businesses and gain a competitive edge. Here’s a roundup of new deals that were revealed, closed, rumored or called off during the month of April.</em></p>
<hr>
<h3>Provider</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/chs-signs-450m-hospital-sale-huntsville-hospital-health-system">Community Health Systems</a> wrapped up the $459 million sale of its Crestwood Medical Center to Huntsville Hospital Health System. The 180-bed Alabama hospital is joined by its associated sites and will see investments in equipment, technology and nurse compensation, its new owner said. </p>
<p><a href="https://chsnet.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/community-health-systems-invests-strategic-growth-ambulatory">Community Health Systems</a> also completed a deal for majority ownership interests in the South Anchorage Surgery Center, an ASC in Alaska, and signed another to acquire Surgical Institute of Alabama, another ASC, during the second quarter. Financial terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p>UConn Health has signed letters of intent with <a href="https://ctmirror.org/2026/04/28/bristol-hospital-uconn-health-sale-2027/">Bristol Health</a> and <a href="https://ctmirror.org/2026/04/17/ct-uconn-health-day-kimball-hospital/">Day Kimball Hospital</a> to add the two hospitals to its UConn Health Community Network. Both prospective deals will require Certificate of Need approvals from the state. The academic system also <a href="https://ctmirror.org/2026/04/01/uconn-health-solnit-children-center-middletown-dcf-psychiatric/">advanced plans</a> to take over a psychiatric center for adolescents, the Albert J. Solnit Children’s Center – South Campus, from the state. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/orlando-health-fleshes-out-alabama-footprint-another-acquisition">Orlando Health</a> will be acquiring RMC Health System, which comprises a municipally owned 375-bed medical center and other facilities in Northeast Alabama. The deal, financial terms for which were not disclosed, is expected to be completed in the fall and will add to Orlando Health’s growing presence in its neighboring state. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.firstalert7.com/2026/04/20/big-spring-medical-center-merges-with-shannon-health/">Quorum Health</a> sold off Scenic Mountain Medical Center, a 146-bed community hospital, to Shannon Health Center. The deal grows Shannon to four hospitals in western Texas. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.baystatehealth.org/news/baystate-health-and-trinity-health-sign-definitive-agreement">Baystate Health</a> signed a definitive agreement to acquire Mercy Medical Center, a 182-bed hospital, plus its joint ventures and affiliated medical groups, from Trinity Health of New England (part of the larger Trinity Health). Financial terms for the western Massachusetts hospital were not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://wvumedicine.org/news/article/wvu-medicine/front-page/fulton-county-medical-center-in-pennsylvania-signs-letter-of-intent-with-wvu-health-system/">West Virginia University Health System</a> plans to add Fulton County Medical Center, a 21-bed critical access hospital, to its integrated network. The parties executed a non-binding letter of intent, which outlines up to $17 million WVU Health System will commit over seven years to modernize the hospital. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.baptist-health.org/news/facilities/baptist-health-to-acquire-magnolia-regional-medical-center-in-magnolia">Baptist Health</a> struck a definitive agreement to acquire Magnolia Regional Medical Center, a 25-bed hospital in Arkansas. The deal will close on July 12, at which point the facility will be branded as Baptist Health Medical Center-Magnolia. </p>
<p><a href="https://queensfoundation.org/blog/update-on-qvmc-transition/">Providence</a> signed a definitive agreement handing over its Queen of the Valley Medical Center and affiliated ambulatory clinics to NorthBay Health. Financial terms for the Napa-based, 198-bed facility were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close later this year following regulatory review.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.primehealthcare.com/prime-healthcare-earns-unanimous-approval-community-support-for-expansion-across-illinois-with-olympia-fields/">Prime Healthcare</a> notched regulatory approval to purchase Franciscan Health Olympia Fields, which set a transaction date “on or around May 1.” With the addition of the 214-bed hospital, the organization will have 55 hospitals, and its ninth in Illinois. The deal includes a $5 million philanthropic contribution to Franciscan Alliance, its prior owner. Prime said it “will offer employment to substantially all employees and will continue charity care and community benefit programs.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.witham.org/recent-news/witham-health-services-announces-intent-join-parkview-health">Witham Health Services</a>, an 60-bed independent hospital in Lebanon, Indiana, signed a nonbinding letter of intent to join Parkview Health as its 16th hospital later this year. Regulatory review and a public hearing for community input would precede the transaction close. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.henryford.com/news/2026/04/cornerstone-medical-group-joins-henry-ford-health">Henry Ford Health System</a>’s 3,400-person medical group added Cornerstone Medical Group, which has 80 physicians and advanced practice providers as well as 25 offices around the Detroit area. </p>
<h3>Payer</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260420382912/en/UnitedHealth-Group-Reports-First-Quarter-2026-Results">UnitedHealth Group</a> sold off Optum UK to TPG, a deal bringing $400 million in net proceeds to the United Health Foundation. The divestiture of the subsidiary, which includes EMIS, a primary care EHR provider for much of the U.K.’s National Health Service, was disclosed in UnitedHealth Group’s Q1 earnings results. </p>
<p>UnitedHealth Group also said in its earnings that it entered a deal to acquire Alegeus Technologies, a tech platform providing benefits administration for consumer-directed healthcare accounts. The company said its transaction is expected to be earnings neutral to 2026 and close in the back half of the year pending regulatory approval. A purchase price was not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://investors.centene.com/2026-04-02-Carolina-Complete-Health-and-WellCare-of-North-Carolina-Combine-to-Form-Provider-Led-Managed-Care-Organization">Centene Corporation</a> subsidiaries Carolina Complete Health and WellCare of North Carolina announced plans to merge, yielding an organization with nearly a million members across Medicaid, Medicare and the Marketplace. The entity, which will use Carolina Complete Health’s branding, will continue to support its plans serving about 240,000 Carolinians with behavioral health and intellectual or developmental disabilities. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.caresource.com/newsroom/press-releases/caresource-and-community-care-inc-affiliate-to-advance-long-term-care-for-older-adults-and-adults-with-disabilities-in-wisconsin/">CareSource and Community Care, Inc.</a>, nonprofit managed care organizations respectively based in Ohio and Wisconsin, said they’ve received the needed regulatory approvals to move forward on their affiliation. The deal marks the second Wisconsin plan to join CareSource in recent years. </p>
<h3>Tech</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/anthropic-acquires-stealth-ai-startup-coefficient-bio-400m-deal">Anthropic</a> acquired Coefficient Bio, a biotech startup that uses AI to boost efficiency in drug discovery and biological research, in a $400 million stock deal. The deal comes as Anthropic has worked to bolster its healthcare presence with new life sciences and healthcare product launches in the past six months. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/health-tech/iks-health-acquire-trubridge-557m-deal">Inventurus Knowledge Solutions (IKS) Health</a> entered into a definitive agreement to acquire TruBridge for approximately $557 million. The deal is funded by a roughly $600 million loan over the next five years. The transaction will combine IKS Health’s care enablement capabilities with TruBridge’s revenue cycle management and electronic health records (EHRs) offerings for rural and community hospitals.</p>
<p><a href="https://onecallcm.com/about/news-blog/one-call-completes-acquisition-of-data-dimensions/">One Call</a>, a care coordination company, acquired electronic data interchange, clearinghouse and technology service company Data Dimensions. The deal will help One Call offer an end-to-end infrastructure that combines intake, clinical coordination, data exchange and payments, it said. Financial terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/azra-ai-acquires-thynk-health-to-close-the-gap-between-imaging-and-cancer-care-302754542.html">Azra AI</a>, which sells oncology workflow automation and care coordination tools, acquired lung cancer screening and incidental findings management technology company Thynk Health. The companies’ combined platforms currently process over half a billion clinical reports and messages per year across hundreds of hospitals, they said. Financial terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.qualifacts.com/resources/qualifacts-acquires-methodone/">Qualifacts</a>, a behavioral health record vendor, acquired MethodOne by Computalogic, whose software supports medication dispensing for opioid treatment programs. Financial terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://blog.medisolv.com/articles/medisolv-acquires-health-elements-ai">Medisolve</a>, a healthcare quality data management technology solver, acquired Health Elements AI. The acquiree develops technology to capture and structure clinical data from records for use in quality reporting and clinical registries. Financial terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://ouraring.com/blog/oura-acquires-galen-ai/">Oura</a>, maker of a smart ring health wearable, acquired AI personal health companion startup Galen AI “to help accelerate Oura’s AI-powered vision for a connected health companion.” Financial terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.noom.com/in-the-news/noom-acquires-503a-pharmacy/">Noom</a>, a behavioral change digital health app, acquired Tailor Made Compounding, a 403A pharmacy operating in 36 states. Noom said the deal will help it expand beyond weight health into peptide-based therapies for healthy aging. Terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.modmed.com/press-release/modmed-acquires-bonsai-health-to-accelerate-ai-powered-patient-engagement/">ModMed</a>, which sells specialty medical practice health IT offerings, acquired patient engagement AI company Bonsai Health. Financial terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.d2ihc.com/eso-acquires-d2i-emergency-intelligence/">ESO Solutions</a>, a data services and software company that sells to first responders, acquired emergency department performance insights platform d2i. Financial terms were not disclosed. </p>
<p>Kipu Health, a behavioral health software company, <a href="https://bhbusiness.com/2026/04/22/exclusive-kipu-health-acquires-team-recovery-technologies-its-largest-deal-yet/">reportedly</a> acquired Team Recovery Technologies, which makes patient engagement tools and offers consulting services. </p>
<h3>Miscellaneous</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/providers/merger-create-nations-largest-suicide-prevention-nonprofit">The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and The Jed Foundation</a> announced plans to merge and become the largest suicide prevention nonprofit in the country. The deal is expected to close this fall and would create an organization with an annual operating budget of about $75 million and net assets of around $140 million.</p>
</div></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="font:13px Helvetica, sans-serif; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; background-color:#fff; padding:8px; margin-bottom:6px; border:1px solid #adadad;" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/assort-health-rolls-out-outbound-ai-agent-personalized-patient-outreach" style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing:-1px;margin:0;padding:0 0 2px;font-weight: bold;font-size: 19px;line-height: 20px;color:#222;">Assort Health rolls out AI agent for proactive outbound calling</a>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align:left;color:#999;font-size:11px;font-weight:bold;line-height:15px;">May 5th 2026, 13:46</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#494949;text-align:justify;font-size:13px;">
<p><div class="col content" morss_own_score="5.888252148997135" morss_score="107.59413450193831">
<p>Startup Assort Health developed an outbound AI agent that can proactively reach out to patients to automate appointment rescheduling, close open referrals, tackle payment collections and accelerate flu shot outreach. </p>
<p>The AI agent, called Assort Activate, is already in use across more than 1,000 providers and can enhance patient access without increasing staff, according to executives.</p>
<p>Assort Health launched in November 2023 with specialty-specific, agentic AI voice agents to support practices, from orthopedics to cardiology to immunology, to triage incoming patient calls by answering frequently asked questions and routing patients to the right individual in the clinic. Assort embeds into the provider’s electronic health record and practice management software to schedule appointments and quickly resolve issues for patients. </p>
<p>The startup is now extending its agents platform for the entire care journey, executives said.</p>
<p>Assort's Activate feature enables health systems, federally qualified health centers, primary care practices and specialty provider groups to book more appointments, accelerate payment collection and close critical care gaps without adding to front office staff workload. </p>
<p>Assort Health leverages its growing dataset of over 150 million patient interactions, 62,000 complex care protocols and 1.6 million unique decision pathways from practices across 22 specialties. </p>
<p>"We own the entire communications layer for these practices, both inbound and outbound, and they're all connected to each other, so they leverage the same context and memory to create more seamless experiences across referrals and fax, payment collections, the care gap discovery, the patient intake," Jon Wang, founder and co-CEO of Assort Health told Fierce Healthcare in a first look at the new outbound AI capability.</p>
<p>Patient outreach is far more nuanced than automated reminders, Wang noted. "It's multi-step referral follow-ups, no-shows with specialty-specific scheduling constraints, care gaps that go unaddressed because no one has time to make the call. Practices know this work matters; they just can’t do it consistently," he said.</p>
<p>Assort Health was able to apply learnings from developing its inbound voice AI agents to build the outbound capability, said Jeffery Liu, founder and co-CEO of Assort Health.</p>
<p>"We're able to apply all the learnings we know about the patient preferences because we have this concept called patient journey memory, which is our ability to create a really personalized experience per patient based on all the interaction data, everything that we fed through the Assort Synapse Engine that enables us to outreach the patients at the proper time and through the proper modality," Liu said.</p>
<p>Assort Health's shared intelligence layer carries forward context, such as language preferences, timing and history, across every patient interaction. </p>
<p>"So the follow-up call knows what the first call said, and each touchpoint with a patient gets more informed and more personal over time. That's what makes this compounding rather than just automated," Liu said.</p>
<p>What started as inbound voice AI has evolved into a full AI agents platform spanning intake, scheduling, referrals, payments and ongoing patient engagement, all connected and learning from each interaction, Assort Health executives said.</p>
<p>These AI agents can save specialty practices significant amounts of time to automate what has typically been a highly manual task. Medical practices today are stretched thin. Inbound call volumes alone consume most of what front office teams have the capacity to handle. </p>
<p>At Boston Bone and Joint Institute, a six-location orthopedic care provider, medical staff used the outbound AI agent to quickly reschedule 53% of patient appointments after a snowstorm forced the organization to close its offices.</p>
<p>Katie Stoll, patient access and technology manager at Boston Bone and Joint Institute, called Assort Health's AI agents "game-changing" for the organization, which serves patients with 20 physicians and 21 advanced practice providers. "That's a huge time saver," she said.</p>
<p>Before using Assort's AI agents, the practice had six to eight people on the phones to contact patients and reschedule appointments in the event of a snowstorm or another unexpected event, like a recent electrical fire, Stoll said, and that required a lot of back and forth.</p>
<p>"What's great is that it's organized with the communication to the patient, not only from the patient side of things, being able to see why we're canceling an appointment, but then being able to just reschedule right then and there. So there's no back and forth," she said. "From the staff perspective, you have this list, and it's very transparent who's rescheduled, who didn't, and who we need to follow up with."</p>
<p>Stoll added, "We're able to help the patient get what they need faster. From the staff perspective, they are able to spend the time with the patients that are in front of them or the patient you have on the phone. Being able to utilize AI has really helped us be more present with the person in front of us, but then also having the patients get their answers faster and minimize the amount of time on hold."</p>
<p>"It's really saving [practices] a lot of time. Before, people used to literally have to make potentially hundreds, if not thousands, of these outbound outreaches a week," Liu said. "What's even more powerful is getting people to be better consumers of their healthcare and do things that they otherwise may not have, like making sure those referrals are actually converted, making sure that people come in for those flu shots or annual physicals when, otherwise, because they were reached out to at the wrong time and weren't able to convert, they're literally not going to get these kind of preventative healthcare appointments."</p>
<p>In early deployments of Assort Activate, primary care, orthopedics and ENT practices have seen high conversion rates. Annapolis Internal Medicine reported 61% of annual flu shot appointments were booked through agentic AI outreach, while SENTA Partners used proactive outreach campaigns to get 64% of its referral appointments scheduled, according to the company.</p>
<p>“Calling out to patients has always required staff to pick up the phone, sometimes multiple times, just to reach someone, and that's a lot of labor hours that can be used somewhere else," Titus Abraham, M.D., managing partner at Annapolis Internal Medicine, said in an Assort Health press release. "What's unique about Activate is that the patient can schedule within that same call. Previously, they'd have to call back or go into a different system entirely. Compared to prior seasons, we saw improved adherence to flu vaccination because of it.”</p>
<p>Twin Cities Orthopedics reported that use of Assort Activate increased outstanding patient collections, with 89% of patients paying outstanding balances, either as full or partial payments, and 47% of payments collected within the first seven days.</p>
<p>Voice AI in healthcare has become a competitive market and Assort Health has its sights set on being the "best AI-native patient access platform," Liu asserted.</p>
<p>"All of our products can talk to each other. So outside of concierge, our inbound product, Activate, our outbound products, we have referral processing, document processing, so end-to-end referral orchestration, document wrangling, we're doing patient intake, we're doing payments, we're doing two-way texting chatbots," he said. "Any tool that a provider or practice needs to interface with their patients, we'll cover. So it's the entire patient care navigation journey from their first contact and after they've gone to their appointment and up to collecting the patient responsibility and everything in between."</p>
<p>Assort Health <a href="https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/ai-and-machine-learning/assort-health-brings-total-funding-102m-four-months">raised</a> a $76 million series B round in October, bringing its total funding to $102 million.</p>
<p>"We're basically positioned in the next two years to deploy $70 million in R&D and continue to be the dominant player, most ubiquitous player in the space, and provide the most value," Wang said. "We think the future will be that every patient will have their own personal AI care manager, essentially that Assort will be deploying. Similar to how we are building AI agents today for groups, we think over time, it makes sense that we'll be the platform to enable and empower these practices to be managing, testing and shipping their own AI agents, which is a really exciting new frontier for this technology."</p>
</div></p>
</div>
<div style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:13px; text-align: center; color: #666666; padding:4px; margin-bottom:2px;"></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><strong>Forwarded by:<br />
Michael Reeder LCPC<br />
Baltimore, MD</strong></p>
<p><strong>This information is taken from free public RSS feeds published by each organization for the purpose of public distribution. Readers are linked back to the article content on each organization's website. This email is an unaffiliated unofficial redistribution of this freely provided content from the publishers. </strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><s><small><a href="#" style="color:#ffffff;"><a href='https://blogtrottr.com/unsubscribe/55wMX0?signature=d3c0935c0cdbd702ef36555e19dabf249df69613966bbb1ace8ed255419b1ff3'>unsubscribe from this feed</a></a></small></s></p>