Welcome back, Health Tech readers, after a much-needed break.

☎️ Situational awareness: A bipartisan group of senators proposed scrapping an in-person telehealth requirement for older Americans that requires them to have seen the same IRL provider within the previous six months, STAT reports.

The joint venture announced last week by Medtronic and DaVita is an effort to create new kidney failure therapies — including, most notably for us, at-home tools.

Why it matters: The deal underscores the renewed importance of kidney care at a time when people with comorbidities, including kidney disease, face an increased risk of serious complications from COVID. (ICYMI, the first pair of U.S. deaths from the virus were patients at an outpatient dialysis clinic.)

Context: The JV follows news of several other high-profile deals in the kidney care space, including...

Details: "NewCo" (it doesn't have a name yet) will be co-owned by Medtronic and DaVita and led by an independent management team.

The intrigue: With the home-based care sector heating up like never before, it will be interesting to see what the two giants develop in terms of remote dialysis products.

🗯️ Our thought bubble: Based on what we've seen from other recently announced unnamed joint ventures, there’s no such thing as a 50-50 deal. Either DaVita or Medtronic initiated this, and one likely has an upper hand here.