Is a major health insurer engaging in market shenanigans? I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and we’ll seek the answers to that and more in this week’s Top Stories.

U.S. Anesthesia Partners has filed lawsuits in Texas and Colorado against UnitedHealthcare, alleging that the nation's largest insurer is driving away referrals from USAP and toward their hand-picked anesthesia providers. According to Healthcare Finance News (https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/us-anesthesia-partners-files-lawsuits-against-unitedhealthcare-claiming-insurer-driving-away), UnitedHealthcare’s parent company, Optum, owns the largest physician practice organization in the U.S. as well as an interest in physician practice group Sound Physicians, which USAP says allows UnitedHealthcare to crush the competition. UnitedHealthcare responded that the lawsuit was merely an attempt to pressure them into accepting rate demands, and said it wants to curb rising costs in its termination of contracts with other providers.

Insurtech company Bright Health has snatched up telehealth startup Zipnosis for an undisclosed sum. As we see in MobiHeathNews (https://www.mobihealthnews.com/news/insuretech-company-bright-health-buys-telemedicine-startup-zipnosis), the move signals that the unicorn health insurance company is looking to strengthen its foothold in the telehealth market. Zipnosis’ financial officer, Cain Brothers, said the deal will allow Bright Health to deliver personalized care and tailor care to individual needs. The news comes a week after Bright Health announced plans to raise at least $1 billion in an IPO. To date, the company has collected more than $1.5 billion in funding dollars.

Finally this week, biotechnology company AstraZeneca has said it will be collaborating with Massachusetts General Hospital to create and clinically validate patient-centric digital health solutions. HealthcareITNews reports (https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/astrazeneca-working-mass-general-tech-heart-failure-asthma) that the collaboration will use AstraZeneca's new AMAZE disease management platform to study heart failure and asthma management. The platform uses remote monitoring to identify at-risk patients and deliver insights to the clinical care team at the point of care. After a pair of pilot studies, Mass General and AstraZeneca say they plan to expand the use of AMAZE across multiple chronic disease areas to patients throughout and beyond the Mass General Brigham system. 

I’m Jeff Lagasse with Healthcare Finance News, and this has been Top Stories.