Key Medicare Advantage player pivots from artery testing to bitcoin

For many of its 18-year historical past, Semler Scientific marketed a single medical product that grew to become a well-liked method for prime Medicare insurers like UnitedHealth Group to detect artery blockages in older Individuals.

However in its most up-to-date earnings name, the system maker’s concentrate on artery well being gave strategy to a unique technique: “We’re a bitcoin-first firm,” Eric Semler, the corporate’s chairman, declared in asserting a big buy of the cryptocurrency. The corporate now claims to be the fourth-largest bitcoin treasury in america.

Semler’s sudden shift towards digital foreign money hypothesis means that its long-running partnership with main well being insurers was pushed not by science or an everlasting dedication to higher well being care, however by a singular want to succeed in right into a multibillion-dollar pot of federal cash. Collectively, these firms had pledged to make use of Semler’s system, referred to as QuantaFlo, detect artery illness early and head off its worst results, comparable to amputation and premature dying. However as the cash started to dry up, information and interviews present, so did their quest to trace down the illness in communities nationwide.