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Sutter Health agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging the health system inflated healthcare costs by forcing insurers into restrictive contracts. The Sacramento, California-based nonprofit system reached an agreement on March 2 with individuals and businesses that alleged Sutter used all-or-nothing contract provisions with insurers to monopolize Northern California hospital markets and drive up costs, according to a U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California filing. All-or-nothing contracts require insurers to include all of a health system’s facilities in their networks regardless of cost. (Kacik, 3/3)

Sycamore Partners is nearing an acquisition of Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, in a deal that could end the drugstore operator’s tumultuous run as a public company. The private equity firm and Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreens are putting the final touches on a transaction that may be announced as soon as this week, according to the people. (Tse, Kirchfeld and Basu, 3/4)

UnitedHealth Group is taking another step to refine its prior authorization requirements as it continues to face public frustration. The healthcare giant’s insurance business, UnitedHealthcare, plans to cut nearly 10% of prior authorizations this year, the company said in a notice Saturday. (Berryman, 3/3)

Mayo Clinic is investing nearly $1.9 billion in its Phoenix campus as part of the Bold. Forward. Unbound. strategy being implemented across the system's multistate footprint. The project covers 1.2 million square feet, including a new procedural building, an expanded specialty care building, 11 new operating rooms and two new patient units that support 48 beds, according to a Monday news release. (Hudson, 3/3)

AdventHealth acquired Community Health Systems-owned ShorePoint Health System Saturday. The $260 million deal involved ShorePoint Health Port Charlotte in Florida, certain assets of ShorePoint Health Punta Gorda and other businesses related to these facilities, according to a Monday press release from CHS. (Hudson, 3/3)

Providence and Compassus kicked off Monday the first phase of a joint venture to manage the health system’s home care operations. Brentwood, Tennessee-based Compassus will manage six Providence home health locations in Alaska and Washington and five of the health system’s hospice and palliative care locations in Alaska, Texas and Washington. The operations will be run under a new entity called Providence at Home with Compassus, the companies said in a news release. Neither company disclosed the financial terms of the deal. (Eastabrook, 3/3)

Despite making up more than half of medical school students, women remain underrepresented in cardiology. Cleveland-based MetroHealth is working to change that. Women outnumber men in medical school for the sixth year in a row, and they now make up 54% of medical students. There are three specialties that female physicians tend to gravitate toward: pediatrics, obstetrics-gynecology and dermatology. (Taylor, 3/3)

Microsoft is beefing up its artificial intelligence capabilities for clinical users. At the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s annual conference in Las Vegas on Monday, the big tech company announced a new way for clinicians to interact with its AI tools. Microsoft launched a natural language chat interface called Dragon Copilot, which takes clinician's text commands and documents them in the electronic health record. (Turner, 3/3)

New York University's Langone Health will use Amazon's palm recognition technology for patient check-ins, the health system announced Monday as a major health information technology conference kicked off. The new system, which will be optional for patients, aims to make it easier and faster to verify patient identities when they show up to an appointment. (Goldman, 3/4)

The Department of Justice is investigating Semler Scientific for possible violations of a federal anti-fraud law related to its marketing of a product known as QuantaFlo, a test used in the diagnosis of peripheral artery disease by UnitedHealth Group and other large insurers. (Lawrence and Ross, 3/3)