Deals are getting done ahead of the usually slower summer months - today's issue covers New Mountain Capital's Smarter Technologies, Kinective’s acquisition of Epic River, AGS, DAS Health, and Net Health’s acquisition of Limber Health. Also the Atlanta Fed's latest data on cash use, how much healthcare costs for the average American family, and our latest CEO Chat with Synchony's Beto Casellas.
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DEAL NEWS
Capital One closes Discover acquisition
Before diving into the rest, we must report that as of May 18, the Capital One - Discover deal is done. After 15 months of regulatory reviews, Capital One finally received the final sign offs on its purchase of Discover. The deal approval came with several stipulations by federal agencies. The Fed, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and FDIC issued a variety of penalties, orders, fines, and requirements for follow up plans, but the deal closed. With Discover, Capital One is now the eighth largest U.S. bank with $660 billion in assets, and is the country’s largest credit card issuer.
Net Health acquires musculoskeletal leader Limber Health
Pittsburgh-based Net Health announced that it has acquired Washington, DC-based Limber Health for an undisclosed amount. Net Health serves more than 25,000 healthcare organizations, providing EHR, patient engagement tools and predictive analytics to wound care and rehab therapy among other markets. According to Net Health's press release, Limber Health's digital and in-person musculoskeletal (MSK) solutions bring "complementary strengths that support clinicians and patients from 'hospital to home', creating more effective hybrid care models and advancing value-based outcomes".
Smarter Technologies created from three health tech companies
New Mountain Capital is upping its investment in the RCM space with its recent combination of three companies into one new AI-driven entity. The deal puts together Access Healthcare, Thoughtful.ai and SmarterDx to create Smarter Technologies, focused on strengthening hospital financial performance by automating administrative workflows.
Smarter Technologies says it now has 27,000 employees and 24 global service centers serving more than 200 clients, 60+ hospitals and health systems and more than 500,000 providers, processes more than 400 million transactions, and manages over $200 billion in revenue each year.
DAS Health receives investment from Coalesce Capital
Coalesce Capital has taken a majority position in Tampa, FL-based DAS Health which provides managed IT services, cybersecurity, cloud hosting, revenue cycle management, value-based care, patient engagement, compliance, and practice management solutions serving 15 million patients. Sheridan Capital Partners will retain a minority investment in the company.
According to one source, Blackstone has taken the pole position to buy AGS Health from EQT, with the price estimated to be $1.1 - 1.3 billion. EQT Private Capital Asia (FKA Baring Private Equity Asia) acquired AGS Health for $320 million in 2019. Other bidders were reportedly a consortium of TPG/ General Atlantic, Frazier Partners and Vitruvian Partners. AGS specializes in RCMsolutions, including healthcare billing, coding, and customized analytics services.
Kinective, a leading provider of banking operations technology, announced the acquisition of Epic River, a provider of secure document technology solutions for financial institutions. We had previously profiled Epic River in our CEO Chat series as a provider of a patient financing platform for credit unions and community banks.
CFPB's efforts to regulate credit card late fee over (for now)
In what plaintiffs called "a win for consumers and common sense", a Federal judge has ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) late fee cap is illegal. A consortium of businesses and banking groups sued during the Biden administration to prevent the late fee change from going into effect.
In a move that surprised exactly no one, with the Trump administration having effectively ended the CFPB's ability to regulate anything at this point, this ruling ends a cloud of uncertainty that had been hanging over the credit card industry since 2023. It is of course possible, should the Democrats take over the White House again in 2028, that the CFPB will be reconstituted and restart efforts to impose the late fee cap and eliminate other so-called "junk fees".
Medical debt should stay on credit reports, says CFPB
In another unsurprising move given the new administration's position, the CFPB reversed itself and joined with groups opposed to removing medical debt from consumer credit reports. The CFPB joined with several industry groups to ask that the "Medical Debt Rule" be held unlawful and vacated because it exceeds the CFPB's statutory authority. A judge is expected to rule on this request any day.
The annual Survey and Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, updated by the Atlanta Fed in October every year, showed declines in the use of cash and checks by U.S. consumers (all numbers compare October 2024 to October 2023):
Paying with cash in the prior 30 days declined from 87% to 83%
Making a check payment declined from 40% to 35%
The share of payments made with cash declined significantly by 2 percentage points, from 16% to 14%
We have previously written about the need for healthcare providers to accommodate patients who continue to pay with cash. While these survey numbers show declining use of cash, which presumably extends to healthcare transactions as well, there is still plenty of cash present in the economy. Healthcare providers would do well to seek the least expensive, most efficient way to accept cash when that is their patient's preferred method of payment.
Annual healthcare cost for family of four tops $35,000
According to the 2025 Milliman Medical Index, the average family of four on employer group health insurance incurs over $35,000 a year for healthcare-related expenses (including employer and employee health insurance premium contributions and employee out of pocket costs).
According to Axios, which reported this data, the equivalent healthcare spending in 2005 was $12,214. The cost in 2025 represents 188% growth since 2005, significantly higher than the 84% wage growth during the same period.
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Conference List. Rolling twelve month look ahead at conferences and other events covering healthcare payments, revenue cycle, fintech and related areas. Updated through September 2025.
FMP Blog. Thoughts from healthcare payments CEOs and investors on their right to win and plans for the next 12 months, as well as data and perspectives on healthcare payments.
Newsletter Archive. News, trends, and insights from the healthcare payments industry compiled in our bi-weekly newsletter. Last six months of newsletters.
Epic MyChart. Excel sheet with full listing of all Epic MyChart instances as of May 2024, categorized by state, provider type and specialty.
All of these resources can also be accessed at the FinMed Partners Insights page.
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FinMed Partners is a management consulting and advisory business focusing at the intersection of payments/ fintech and healthcare. Our founders have developed deep expertise from decades of experience with health IT companies, healthcare providers and many players within the payments ecosystem. Investors, boards and executive teams work with us to maximize business value through strategic input and tactical execution.
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