About health insurance
Medicaid Expansion and Mortality Among Patients With Breast, Lung, and Colorectal Cancer: “Among patients with newly diagnosed breast, colorectal, and lung cancer, Medicaid expansion was associated with a decreased hazard of mortality in the postexpansion period, which was mediated by earlier stage of diagnosis.”
Nashville school district leader overhauls maternity benefit pricing:Vanderbilt University and Nashville teachers created “MyMaternityHealth — a maternity benefit that bundles all costs associated with pregnancy and delivery into one price for employers. The price is adjusted based on whether the individual pregnancy is low, medium or high-risk. By eliminating out of pocket costs, employees save approximately $2,500 each time they have a baby.”
A New Item on Your Medical Bill: The ‘Covid’ Fee: “The coronavirus pandemic has made the practice of health care more costly as providers must wear protective gear and sanitize equipment more often, even as they face declining revenue. Two groups of providers have been particularly hard hit. Dentists have lost billions since patients began postponing nonurgent dental care this spring. And assisted living facilities, grappling with lower overall demand, have also been forced to admit fewer residents to help stop the spread of infection
To address this financial shortfall, some health providers are turning directly to patients. Surprise ‘Covid’ and ‘PPE’ fees have turned up across the country, in bills examined by The New York Times.”
Trends in Birth Rates After Elimination of Cost Sharing for Contraception by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: “In this cross-sectional study, the elimination of cost sharing for contraception under the ACA was associated with improvements in contraceptive method prescription fills and a decrease in births among commercially insured women. Women with low income had more precipitous decreases than women with higher income, suggesting that enhanced access to contraception may address well-documented income-related disparities in unintended birth rates.”
About the public’s health
More state officials announce restrictions as US tops 100,000 new Covid-19 infections for second day in a row: The headline speaks for itself as the number of national cases continues to grow.
CDC seeks input on proposal to centralize COVID-19 laboratory test reporting:”The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would like to partner with one or more organizations to enable centralized reporting from COVID-19 testing entities to public health departments, the agency said this week in a request for information.”
World Health Assembly charts course for COVID-19 response and global health priorities: The headline speaks for itself.
Prothrombotic autoantibodies in serum from patients hospitalized with COVID-19: “Patients with COVID-19 are at high risk for thrombotic arterial and venous occlusions. Lung histopathology often reveals fibrin-based occlusions in the small blood vessels of patients who succumb to the disease…
These findings suggest that half of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 become at least transiently positive for aPL [Antiphospholipid] antibodies and that these autoantibodies are potentially pathogenic.”
Distinct antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in children and adults across the COVID-19 clinical spectrum: Children and adults develop different antibody patterns if infected with SARS-CoV-2. More specifically, this research suggests “a distinct infection course and immune response in children independent of whether they develop MIS-C [multisystem inflammatory syndrome]…” This finding has “implications for developing age-targeted strategies for testing and protecting the population.”
First COVID-19 Vaccine Doses To Go To Health Workers, Say CDC Advisers: “Health care workers will almost certainly get the first doses of COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. when one is approved, according to Dr. José Romero, head of the committee that develops evidence-based immunization guidelines for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
About hospitals and health systems
19 hospitals with strong finances: While this article is FYI, note that six of the nineteen are children’s hospitals.
About pharma
Some financial results from pharma companies:
BMS bumps up full-year profit estimate as Q3 sales surge 75%;
Teva posts wider loss in Q3 after $4.6-billion impairment charge;
Eisai's sales gain, profit slips in second quarter
Controversial Alzheimer’s drug gets boost from FDA staff: “A [Biogen] drug that would be the first new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease in nearly two decades received a vote of confidence Wednesday from Food and Drug Administration clinical reviewers, who said ‘exceptionally persuasive’ data showed the drug slowed cognitive decline caused by the devastating ailment.”
Antirheumatic metallodrug can resurrect 'last resort' antibiotics to kill multi-drug resistant superbugs: “A research team from Hong Kong University discovered “that by repurposing an antirheumatic gold drug, auranofin (AUR), ‘last-resort’ antibiotics can be resensitized for treatment of infections caused by multidrug-resistant superbugs including bloodstream infections, pneumonia and wound infections.
The findings provide insights into development of inorganic pharmaceutics and new therapeutic approach for superbug infections.”
This finding, if reproduced, could have a significant impact on the growing problem of drug resistant infections.
A decision algorithm to promote outpatient antimicrobial stewardship for uncomplicated urinary tract infection: ”Kanjilal et al. applied a machine learning approach calibrated to local hospital electronic health record data to predict the probability of resistance to first- and second-line antibiotic therapies for uncomplicated UTI. The algorithm then recommended the least broad-spectrum antibiotic to which a given isolate was predicted nonresistant. Use of the pipeline reduced both broad-spectrum and ineffective antibiotic prescription for UTI in the patient cohort relative to clinicians, suggesting the clinical potential of the approach.”
The frequency of urinary tract infections has caused an increase in drug resistance. This successful use of an algorithm for treatment decision-making may alleviate that problem and lower cost.
About healthcare IT
FCC’S Connected Care Pilot Program Application Window to Open on November 6: Public Notice Outlines Application Submission Process and Eligible Services: “The Connected Care Pilot Program is open to nonprofit and public eligible health care providers, located anywhere in the country. Specifically, the Pilot Program will use Universal Service Fund monies to help defray the costs of connected care services for eligible health care providers, providing support for 85% of the cost of eligible services and network equipment, which include: (1) patient broadband Internet access services; (2) health care provider broadband data connections; (3) other connected care information services; and (4) certain network equipment. The Pilot Program will not provide funding for end-user devices.”
About supply chains
Vizient to Acquire Intalere, Expanding its Supply Chain Capabilities: Vizient announced “that it has signed an agreement under which it will acquire Intalere from Intermountain Healthcare, enhancing itself as a leader in the health care supply chain. Intermountain Healthcare will now partner with Vizient for supply chain solutions and services, thereby expanding their current relationship with Vizient in clinical and cost analytics.”
AAFP [ American Academy of Family Practice], Other Groups Decry DEA Telemedicine Rule-making Delay: More than “80 health care professional, insurer, behavioral health and telehealth provider groups ― including the AAFP ― recently sent to the Drug Enforcement Administration, calling for the agency to ‘expedite and complete its efforts to implement a telemedicine special registration process enabling providers to safely prescribe controlled substances remotely.’
In the Oct. 26 missive to DEA Acting Administrator Timothy Shea, the organizations urge that the special registration process outlined in a provision of the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act of 2018 be finalized so physicians and other qualified health care professionals can use telemedicine to prescribe certain medications to treat substance use disorders.”