Public or private: A distinction relevant to everything from your Instagram account to parents deciding where to send their kids to school. And, increasingly, the age-old either-or applies to a company’s networking preferences, too.

• As of August 2022, there were 889 enterprises known to be deploying private networks worldwide, per Global Mobile Suppliers Association, an increase of 68% from 528 in September 2021.
• About 38% of those networks were either 5G or a mix of 5G and LTE in August, up from 25% in November 2021.

Private cellular networks, which can be built on licensed or unlicensed spectrum, currently tend to be used by organizations to increase connectivity between systems and secure critical infrastructure, according to Dan Littmann, principal and national sector leader for telecommunications at Deloitte Consulting.

“The initial use case is about connectivity,” Littmann said. “How do I get conductivity within my enterprises to places where I’m conductivity challenged? That can be in large outdoor spaces; that can be in a factory where there’s a lot of metal and there’s a lot of interference that my current networks can’t handle.”

Big picture: Private cellular networks didn’t begin in the 5G era—the practice stretches back before the 4G era, Littman said. But with the advent of 5G and the availability of unlicensed spectrum, they are now “much more pervasive” than ever, he said. Read the full story on private 5G adoption here.—JM

As the CEO and co-founder of Eleos Health, Alon Joffe has been working to try to address a reimbursement problem dogging therapists across the US that has contributed to some practitioners in states like Illinois and Colorado forgoing insurance altogether.

• Clawbacks, or retroactive coverage denials, are a pervasive problem in healthcare. It occurs when Medicare, Medicaid, or private health plans recoup payments that have already been made.

Many mental health providers already struggle with low reimbursement rates, and clawbacks can negatively affect their ability to keep offering services.

Eleos’s platform aims to help mental health providers better document services like talk therapy through AI, potentially reducing the likelihood that the insurer can find cause to “claw back” a payment. (The insurance trade organization AHIP did not return a request for comment to discuss concerns raised about clawbacks.)

Joffe, who spoke with Healthcare Brew from his home office in Tel Aviv, Israel, declined to disclose the cost of Eleos’s product and support services, but said it has more than 25 customers across 15 states.

Zoom out: Mental health providers are turning to AI for help with everything from diagnosing patients to reducing their administrative workloads. Other companies—like Seattle-based Lyssn, which employs AI to assess the use of evidence-based practices such as cognitive behavioral therapy—are also working to fill the need.

Joffe spoke about what his company is doing to help therapists tackle the sticky problem of clawbacks. Read the full piece from Healthcare Brew here.—MS

Stat: For the first time, Chinese EV giant BYD is shaping up to be China’s top-selling vehicle brand overall for the month of November—not just among EV makers. It would also mark the first time an EV-focused automaker led the world’s largest auto market.

Quote: “Many companies saw this moment as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go after market share and mind share and share of wallet. Now you have that moment coming to an end.”—Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, to the WSJ on tech recruiter jobs drying up

Watch: Why Cisco decked out its NYC office with a boatload of sensors.

Inflation fever: Is inflation revisiting the disco era? MFS Investment Management’s chief economist examines similarities and key differences between today and the 1970s. Go deeper here.*

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Three of the following news stories are true, and one...we made up. Can you spot the odd one out?

• Amazon has introduced a generative AI feature for Alexa that spits out children’s stories based on a series of prompts.
• Boston Dynamics announced Robot FC, a team of bipedal robots that it claims could win the World Cup.
• Among FTX’s many creditors is Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville hotel in the Bahamas.
• A startup is hard at work producing video games for...dogs.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• Luminar’s quest to become a major auto supplier
• Remote employee monitoring tech is surging
• Inflation pressures are reaching climate tech companies