About health insurance
CMS boosts Medicare payments for high-throughput COVID-19 diagnostic tests: “The agency said Medicare will pay a higher payment of $100 for COVID-19’s clinical diagnostic lab tests that use ‘high-throughput technologies developed by the private sector that allow for increased testing capacity, faster results and more effective means of combating the spread of the virus.’”
UnitedHealth Reports Profit, Citing Falling Demand for Elective Care: Despite lower enrollment (see yesterday’s blog), “UnitedHealth reported earnings from operations increased by 3 percent, to $5 billion, for the first quarter of 2020, compared with the same three months of 2019, on revenue of $64 billion.”
Elective procedure volume was markedly down, but so was its surgicenter volume. The Optum division also contributed to the increased revenue. Its PBM has not been hit because there is no treatment for COVID-19 and premiums continue to come in.
The telehealth services Aetna, UnitedHealthcare & more payers are covering during COVID-19 pandemic: Here is a list of where to find telehealth coverage for the major private insurers.
About the public’s health
Chest X-Ray Findings in 636 Ambulatory Patients with COVID-19 Presenting to an Urgent Care Center: A Normal Chest X-Ray Is no Guarantee: COVID-19 causes a classic “ground glass” appearance on chest x-ray. However, this research found that the X-rays “obtained from confirmed and symptomatic COVID-19 patients… were normal in 58.3% of cases, and normal or only mildly abnormal in 89% of patients.”
How Bubonic Plague Has Helped Russia Fight the Coronavirus: Russia’s 20th century experience with bubonic plague created an effective process for rapid containment and coordinated action in the face of a contagious threat.
How Many Times Can an N95 Mask Be Sanitized and Reused?:”Both ultraviolet light and vaporized hydrogen peroxide met the bar for killing off SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 without impacting fit testing for two rounds of wear and decontamination compared with control respirators. Filtration remained ‘acceptable’ after a third round for those two methods as well…A separate group studying N95 respirator decontamination has cautioned that soapy water, alcohol, bleach immersion, and overnight storage are unsuitable.”
Liechtenstein rolls out radical Covid-19 bracelet programme: ”The principality of Liechtenstein is piloting a programme to fit its citizens with biometric bracelets in a radical new drive to track the emergence of potential cases of Covid-19 in real time. On Thursday, one in 20 Liechtensteiners will be offered the bracelets, which will send data on vital bodily metrics including skin temperature, breathing rate and heart rate back to a Swiss laboratory for analysis. In a second phase, which will begin in the autumn, bracelets will be offered to the whole population…”
BCG vaccine not recommended for virus: WHO : " ‘There is no evidence that the BCG vaccine protects people against infection with COVID-19 virus,’ the WHO said in response to reports that countries where the vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) was used have a lower incidence of coronavirus infections and deaths.”
New Data on Hydroxychloroquine Shows Little Benefit:”The malaria drug did appear to reduce inflammation, but more adverse events were observed in the hydroxychloroquine group vs. the standard-of-care cohort.”
As demand surges, half of prescriptions needed for Covid-19 patients on ventilators are going unfilled: “As the pandemic continues to spread across the U.S., orders for medicines needed for Covid-19 patients who are placed on ventilators are being filled and shipped to hospitals only 53% of the time, down from 72% last month, according to new data.
The decline reflects surging demand for more than a dozen sedatives, anesthetics, painkillers, and muscle relaxants, which have been in short supply. The findings raise the possibility that it could become more difficult for health care providers to place these patients on ventilators, because the drugs are used to help manage pain and comfort levels while a patient is on mechanical ventilation.”
Coronavirus destroys lungs. But doctors are finding its damage in kidneys, hearts and elsewhere.: The primary manifestation of COVID-19 may not only be respiratory. ”…clinicians around the world are seeing evidence that suggests the virus also may be causing heart inflammation, acute kidney disease, neurological malfunction, blood clots, intestinal damage and liver problems.”
CMS loosens clinician scope-of-practice, telehealth rules for COVID-19 crisis:”To boost the capacity of frontline clinicians and facilities to fight COVID-19, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on Thursday announced it is temporarily suspending rules to allow physicians to provide telehealth services across state lines, and will permit midlevel practitioners to provide as much care as their state licenses allow.”
China didn’t warn public of likely pandemic for 6 key days: “In the six days [Jan. 14 to Jan. 20] top Chinese officials secretly determined they likely were facing a pandemic from a new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan at the epicenter of the disease hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people; millions began traveling through for Lunar New Year celebrations.
President Xi Jinping warned the public on the seventh day, Jan. 20. But by that time, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and expert estimates…”
The lessons we didn’t learn from Ebola:”An interview with Christopher Kirchhoff, who wrote a post-mortem of the US Ebola response for the National Security Council:
…Ebola taught us that there’s an incredible penalty for inaction, because epidemics grow exponentially: every day you delay responding, you end up facing a steeper exponential curve that makes the situation quickly transition from what would have been manageable to something that’s unmanageable. This is where we are today. You have to imagine that the presence of an office well staffed with professionals in emerging infectious diseases would have been able to help the US government be more nimble in those crucial early days, when more capabilities could have been brought online and could have been ready to help us get ahead of the curve.” More details are in the interview.