About health insurance
Medicaid Work Requirements In Arkansas: Two-Year Impacts On Coverage, Employment, And Affordability Of Care: Read the entire abstract. The aim of the requirement was to get people off Medicaid and back to work. However, “work requirements did not increase employment over eighteen months of follow-up.”
Insurers bearing the brunt of COVID-19 test costs. That might mean higher premiums: “Health insurers say providers are overcharging them for COVID-19 tests and the added costs could mean higher premiums for their plan members in the future.
The problem, insurers said, is providers can charge whatever they want for the tests and insurers must cover the full costs — no matter how high — under federal laws passed to address the coronavirus pandemic. One free-standing emergency room charged Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas $4,800 for a nasal swab test, according to a redacted claim provided by the insurer.”
Coronavirus Tests Are Supposed to Be Free. The Surprise Bills Come Anyway:”Congress passed laws requiring insurers to pay for tests, and the Trump administration created a program to cover the bills of the uninsured. Cities and states set up no-cost testing sites…
About 2.4 percent of coronavirus tests billed to insurers leave the patient responsible for some portion of payment, according to the health data firm Castlight…
In some cases, the charges appear to violate new federal laws that aim to make coronavirus tests free for privately insured patients. In other cases, insurers are interpreting gray areas in these new rules in ways that work in their favor.”
About pharma
1,100 Hospitals Press HHS to Enforce 340B Pricing:”More than 1,100 hospitals in 46 states and the District of Columbia on Thursday urged the federal government to ensure that drug makers continue to provide discounts mandated under the 340B Drug Pricing Program for safety-net providers…
The petitioning hospitals noted that 340B hospitals provide 60% of uncompensated and unreimbursed care and 75% of hospital care to Medicaid patients…
The hospitals complained that several drug makers have cut off access to discounted drugs, and they singled out AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly (Azar's former employer), Merck, Sanofi, and Novartis as the most egregious offenders.”
Novartis, Roche fined $526M in France for alleged Lucentis marketing missteps: “ The [French] Competition Authority levied a fine of €385 million ($455 million) against Novartis and €60 million ($71 million) against Roche, according to several press reports in Europe. Lucentis was developed by Roche’s Genentech division and is marketed in Europe by Novartis.
The agency said the penalties were in response to allegedly anti-competitive practices by the companies in pushing Lucentis over Roche’s similar—and much less expensive—cancer drug Avastin, which can be used off-label to treat AMD [Age-related macular degeneration].”
Takeda's selloff spree continues with $562M deal with Germany's Cheplapharm:”With last month’s $2.3 billion Japanese consumer health sale to Blackstone Group, Takeda has arguably achieved its $10 billion divestment goal. But the Japanese pharma is showing no sign of stopping with the selloffs anytime soon.
Tuesday, Takeda said it had penned a deal to offload some noncore prescription drugs sold mainly in Europe and Canada to Germany’s Cheplapharm for $562 million…
the drugs changing hands fall outside of the company’s five key focus areas of gastroenterology, rare diseases, oncology, plasma-derived therapies and neuroscience. Takeda will use the cash to reduce the mountain of debt it incurred with its $59 billion Shire buyout and help lower its net debt/adjusted EBITDA ratio to the target of 2x, which it's aiming to hit between fiscal year 2021 and 2023.”
AbbVie puts $2B on the table for I-Mab cancer collab as biotech nabs $418M raise:”It’s a good day for Shanghai-based I-Mab, which has penned a $2 billion upfront-biobucks R&D deal with AbbVie while also nabbing $418 million from investors.” Read the article for details.
About healthcare IT
Taking the Pulse® 2020 Physician Survey Shows 4 in 5 U.S. Physicians Have Conducted Virtual Patient Consults Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: “As of July 2020, 80% of U.S. physicians had conducted a virtual patient consultation in the previous three months – up from 39% in April and 9% in early March, when use of virtual consults was unchanged over 2019 levels…
However, barriers to telemedicine use remain – 58% of U.S. physicians have lingering reservations about the quality of care they can provide remotely.”
Telehealth is biggest threat to healthcare cybersecurity, says report: The headline speaks for itself. Read the article for more details.
About the public’s health
2020 Scorecard on State Health System Performance: Latest state rankings by the Commonwealth Fund. Hawaii, Massachusetts and Minnesota are again the top three.
20-second coronavirus screening test piloted at U.K.'s Heathrow airport: “Two British companies are preparing to launch a simple COVID-19 saliva screening test that aims to provide an accurate result within 20 seconds—following its first uses at London’s Heathrow airport, one of the busiest in the world.
The Virolens device, developed by iAbra, uses a digital microscope and artificial intelligence-powered software to visually search a mouth swab sample for signs of the novel coronavirus.
The machine provides a low-cost, repeatable and self-administered method of screening, allowing hundreds of cartridge-based tests to be performed each day, according to iAbra’s manufacturing partner TT Electronics. Validation studies by the University of Bristol have pegged the system’s false-negative rate of 0.2%, alongside a false-positive rate of 3.3%.”
New tool could 'help UK doctors spot high-risk Covid patients in seconds': “The researchers focused on eight metrics that play a key role in determining mortality risk – age, sex, number of underlying conditions, respiratory rate, blood oxygen concentration, level of consciousness, urea, and C-reactive protein (a chemical linked to inflammation).
These factors were combined into a model to give a score ranging from 0 to 21 points. Age, they concluded, is the biggest predictor, accounting for a third of the score. The calculations suggested patients with a score of at least 15 had a 62% chance of mortality compared with 1% mortality for those with a score of three or less. The tool, which is easily accessible on a smartphone or computer, takes seconds to generate a score and is expected to be rolled out in the NHS this week.”
COVID-19 study links strict social distancing to much lower chance of infection: Just a reminder: “Using public transportation, visiting a place of worship, or otherwise traveling from the home is associated with a significantly higher likelihood of testing positive with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, while practicing strict social distancing is associated with a markedly lower likelihood.”
Trends in Mortality From Drug Poisonings, Suicide, and Alcohol-Induced Deaths in the United States From 2000 to 2017: “During 2000 to 2017, 1 446 177 drug poisoning, suicide, and alcohol-induced premature deaths occurred in the US… totaling 451 596 more deaths than expected based on 2000 rates.”The concentration of each of those causes of death varied in different regions.