Richmond telehealth company AnswersNow wins big industry award
The Los Angeles group annually hands out awards to companies, products and people in the medical tech, digital health and fitness spaces, including those working in medical devices, internet of things, electronic health records and more. The group of 141 winners for 2025 was judged from a pool of more than 4,500 nominations.
AnswersNow pairs families with behavioral health clinicians specializing in autism on its proprietary platform. The clinicians provide applied behavior analysis, which is often used to teach new behaviors or diminish behaviors associated with autism. It is also used in the treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and other developmental disabilities.
The company utilizes telehealth technology to meet patients where they are and at more convenient times. That, it says, makes care more accessible and affordable.
'Traditional autism care in America is past its breaking point and families deserve better,' AnswersNow CEO Jeff Beck said in a statement. 'This recognition is an important validation of our team's collective effort and the undeniable evidence that virtual ABA therapy helps learners everywhere lead more fulfilling lives.'
AnswersNow recently made a series of executive hires with an eye on expansion in 2025. Beck told me March the company would likely go to market in the third or fourth quarter to raise more money. AnswersNow has raised roughly $12.5 million to since its founding in 2017, according to Crunchbase, including an $11 million Series A round in 2023 led by New York's Left Lane Capital.
Beck told me the company, which employs a total of 154, has tripled revenue each year since 2022. He declined to give exact figures.
Today, AnswersNow is serving Medicaid and commercial clients in Virginia, Texas and Georgia.
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Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
Why Florida is missing out on $200 million a year in Medicaid funding for schools
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She noted that school-based services are 'a very niche portion' of the state's Medicaid budget — somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% — and that over time agency officials have paid less attention to them, decreasing communication with school districts and reducing staff dedicated to the service. The issue shouldn't be a side note, as it affects the lives of some of Florida's neediest children, she said. And the pandemic made kids' mental health a national crisis. 'Kids used to miss school because of asthma,' Thomas said. 'Now they're missing school because of anxiety and depression.' After the 2018 Parkland attack, state lawmakers wanted to make sure students were getting proper mental health assistance in schools. In 2020, they passed legislation allowing schools to use Medicaid dollars for other types of care. DeSantis signed it into law. But his Agency for Health Care Administration never rewrote the agency's rules to allow school districts to use the new law. 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Boston Globe
3 hours ago
- Boston Globe
Dozens gather at Boston Medical Center to protest Trump''s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,' cuts to Medicaid
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Newsweek
12 hours ago
- Newsweek
Texas Removes 1.8 Million People From Health Care Plan
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Almost 1.8 million Americans have been disenrolled from Medicaid health coverage in Texas in the last two years, according to data by KFF, a nonprofit health policy research and news organization. These Americans have lost their health insurance as part of the unwinding process happening nationwide after Medicaid coverage was expanded following the COVID pandemic. A spokesperson for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) told Newsweek it is "committed to ensuring that those qualified for benefits receive them," and worked closely with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) "throughout the public health emergency and the Medicaid unwind process." 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Gerald Herbert/AP What To Know During the pandemic, some states expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) while some Americans may have being encouraged to enroll for health coverage given the spread of the virus, causing nationwide enrollment levels to increase. Federal rules then meant states had to keep most Medicaid enrollees on the program even if their eligibility status changed, a requirement which expired in March 2023, allowing states to resume removing individuals from the program. Medicaid enrollment has since steadily declined, driven by both eligibility losses and procedural disenrollments. In Texas, there were 5,922,450 covered by Medicaid in March 2023, but by March 2025, that number was 4,164,694, KFF data shows. This marks a change of almost 1.8 million, a rate of decline faster than in Florida, California and New York. The number of people with Medicaid coverage is now just lower than February 2020 levels, a difference of 1 percent. Reasons for Texas' steeper drop in Medicaid enrollment could be because of the fact it, combined with Florida, New York and California, made up a significant proportion of Medicaid enrollment before the unwinding, Timothy McBride, a professor of public health at Washington University in St. Louis, told Newsweek. All four states together accounted for 36 percent of Medicaid enrollment and subsequently accounted for 31 percent of the drop in the unwinding period between 2020 and 2025, he added. This is in part because the states have large populations, but also because they have some of lowest percentages of health insurance coverage by employers or private plans, McBride said. This is due to "higher poverty rates, especially in Florida and Texas, fewer good jobs that offer health insurance, and a higher percentage of nonwhite persons, especially in Florida, Texas, and California," he said. "If they do not have private coverage they seek Medicaid," he added. For those that were able to gain health insurance through private coverage once being rolled off Medicaid, there is little concern. However, those that may remain uninsured as a result of the unwinding process "I am worried about," McBride said. "The negative outcomes could be delays in seeking needed medical care leading to worse outcomes, lack of prevention, which is especially problematic if they have chronic conditions, bad mental health and financial outcomes, and higher medical debt since they have to pay for more out of pocket," he added. What People Are Saying Timothy D. McBride, professor of public health at Washington University in St. Louis, told Newsweek: "Part of the drop is people who maintained Medicaid coverage on paper because they got it at some point during the pandemic but remained there through the PHE. Yet some may have moved along and obtained other coverage, so really were not needing the Medicaid anyway. The group we are concerned about is those who have become uninsured or who lost the coverage for procedural reasons. It appears from some work that maybe 30 percent or so of those who lost coverage may be uninsured. And a lot of people—around that number lost coverage for procedural reasons, many of them children." Laura Dague, a professor of health policy at Texas A&M University, told Newsweek: "How impactful the decreases in enrollment will be in terms of individual health depend on how aware people were of their ongoing coverage and how often they used it, and there is not much empirical evidence on this topic at the moment. A much bigger issue for Texas in my opinion will be the upcoming projected decreases in Marketplace enrollment due to decreasing subsidies; Texas has had major growth in that market in the last few years as subsidies increased." What Happens Next As the unwinding continues, more reductions in enrollment are expected in the state, and across the country. With millions already having lost health coverage, concerns remain about access to care for low-income individuals and families.
