About hospitals and health systems
Hospitals can gain profits from outpatient specialty drugs, but with major risks: Moody’s recommended hospitals could access more revenue by a focus on outpatient specialty drugs, for which they can bill separately. However, challenges to the 340B program and Congressional actions to reduce pharma costs could endanger those initiatives.
About healthcare professionals
Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout:A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being: Burnout has become a significant threat to the adequacy of healthcare professionals. This paper, by the national Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, is a brief, clear discussion of the problem with some (rather simplistic) solutions.
About the public’s health
DEA unveils new rule on opioid manufacturers after criticism: “Every year, the DEA sets a quota for how many opioid pills drugmakers are allowed to produce in the U.S. The quotas are set by the DEA with input from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and drug manufacturers.
DEA is charged with keeping controlled substances from being diverted for abuse. The proposed rule would require that appropriate quota reductions be made after estimating the potential for pills to be sold illegally…
According to the report, the DEA permitted drugmakers to increase their production of oxycodone, a highly addictive painkiller, by 400 percent between 2002 and 2013.
The DEA didn't substantially cut the quota until 2017, when opioid overdose deaths reached a peak in the U.S.”
House panel approves vaping tax, would levy $1.15 a Juul pod: The headline speaks for itself. The only consistent way to reduce harmful behaviors is by increasing its cost.
About pharma
Need a safe antacid for heartburn? FDA declares Pepcid, Nexium and others free of NDMA: The FDA cleared those drugs to be used instead of Zantac.
About health IT
How private is your health data on “patient portal” websites used by hospitals and doctors’ offices?: The answer to this question is not as straightforward as you think. For example, your information at your doctor’s office or hospital may be used for marketing purposes with de-identified patient characteristics.(You can opt out.) However, if you keep your own data on an app from a variety of sources, it is not protected.
Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations: “Health systems rely on commercial prediction algorithms to identify and help patients with complex health needs. We show that a widely used algorithm [from Optum], typical of this industry-wide approach and affecting millions of patients, exhibits significant racial bias: At a given risk score, Black patients are considerably sicker than White patients, as evidenced by signs of uncontrolled illnesses. Remedying this disparity would increase the percentage of Black patients receiving additional help from 17.7 to 46.5%. The bias arises because the algorithm predicts health care costs rather than illness…”
About health insurance
Payments to high financial risk APMs [Advanced Payment Models] slightly increased in 2018 compared to 2017: survey: “A survey released by the public-private partnership Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network (LAN) showed that nearly 36% of total U.S. healthcare payments in 2018 went to APMs that required some type of financial accountability from providers, a slight increase from 2017. The survey features payers in traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicaid and commercial plans…
The report broke APMs into four categories. The first category is fee-for-service with no link to quality, and the second covers fee-for-service payments linked to quality.
The third and fourth categories hold providers financially accountable for not meeting appropriate care measures or cost targets.
LAN found that 35.8% of total U.S. healthcare payments in 2018 were tied to an APM in category three or four, an increase from 34% in 2017. The survey found that 41% of healthcare dollars were sent to category one and 25% sent to category two. The percentage of payments to APMs differed based on the type of payer.”