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Healthcare costs are expected to rise 7% next year as providers deal with higher expenses and seek rate increases during contract negotiations with insurers. The projection by PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute tops the consultancy's estimates in 2022 and 2023, which were 5.5% and 6%, respectively. (Kacik, 6/29)

Executives at the Healthcare Financial Management Association conference expressed serious concern that worsening economic conditions, an uptick in health insurance claim denials and the complexity of managing multiple vendors are impeding the hospital sector's prospects. (Hartnett, 6/29)

A new artificial intelligence-powered tool aims to detect signs of dementia, Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders by analyzing a person’s speech and language patterns. The system is called CognoSpeak. Researchers at the University of Sheffield in the U.K. developed it. In early trials that included both Alzheimer’s patients and cognitively heathy people, the tool showed 90% accuracy in identifying those with dementia — which is just as accurate as "pen-and-paper tests," according to a press release announcing the new tool. (Rudy, 6/30)

The medical device industry is split on whether a proposed new Medicare reimbursement pathway will do anything to soothe their insurance coverage woes. Device makers have long complained that the unclear, rocky road to payment kills innovative companies. So they were thrilled when the Trump administration proposed a rule that would have guaranteed four years of Medicare coverage of approved devices deemed “breakthroughs” by the Food and Drug Administration. (Lawrence, 6/30)

Mental health and meditation app company Headspace Health laid off 15% of its workers in its second round of job cuts since December amid a wave of layoffs that continues to sweep the tech industry and beyond. (Ding, 6/29)

The multibillion-dollar private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe took less than a year to create, from scratch, Colorado’s biggest and most prominent anesthesiology practice. The financiers created a company, U.S. Anesthesia Partners, which in 2015 bought the largest anesthesiology group in the Denver region. Then it bought the next largest. Then it bought a few more. The company employed 330 anesthesiologists in Colorado at one point, according to its website, making it the state’s largest practice by far. It obtained contracts at 10 of the region’s 15 largest hospitals, according to the hospitals. (Whoriskey, 6/29)