AMA removes public displays of founder over past racism, discrimination: “The American Medical Association removed some recognitions of its founder, Nathan Davis, MD, whose actions explicitly excluded women and Black physicians from representation in the association.
The association removed a bust and display of Dr. Davis in its Chicago headquarters and placed them in its archives to use as educational material. The association also removed his name from an annual award it gives to individuals for outstanding government service.”
About Covid-19
C.D.C. Announces $200 Million ‘Down Payment’ to Track Virus Variants: “As lawmakers push for billions of dollars to fund the nation’s efforts to track coronavirus variants, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday a new effort to ramp up this work, pledging nearly $200 million to better identify the emerging threats.” In a related article: Biden administration will spend $1.6B to expand COVID-19 testing, sequencing.
Businesses, public health organizations form alliance to strengthen COVID-19 response: “The Ad Council, Business Roundtable, the CDC Foundation, the de Beaumont Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have jointly formed the Health Action Alliance, which will assist a participating network of businesses in improving their workers' health, providing COVID-19 prevention and vaccination information and strengthening their public health capabilities.
Another focus, the organizations said, is on improving health equity and assisting underserved and disproportionately impacted communities.
Initial participants in the program include big names such as Amazon, CVS Health, Facebook, JPMorgan Chase, Comcast, Walgreens and Walmart. The alliance is backed by impact firm Meteorite…”
On social media, vaccine misinformation mixes with extreme faith: “The rapid spread of this material has triggered debate and concern among U.S. Christian leaders and experts who believe the religious movement against vaccines is growing, even as many leaders such as Pope Francis and Southern Baptist Convention policy leader Russell Moore are urging people to get shots.”
U.K. gets approval to infect healthy volunteers in world’s first coronavirus ‘challenge trial’: ”Britain will become the first country to deliberately infect healthy volunteers with the coronavirus, now that the country's ethics body has approved a ‘human challenge trial.’
The effort, funded by the British government, aims to accelerate scientific understanding of vaccines and treatments.
The first stage will begin within the month and see up to 90 adults, age 18 to 30, exposed to the coronavirus “in a safe and controlled environment” to gauge the smallest amount of virus needed to cause infection, the government said in a statement Wednesday.”
BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine is less potent against South African variant: “The BioNTech/Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine appears to be significantly less effective against the virus variant that emerged in South Africa, according to a study published on Wednesday. The vaccine still works against the strain known as 501Y.V2, but the shot produced only a third of the antibodies that it did for the original virus in a lab study using an engineered virus. The partners said there was ‘no clinical evidence’ that people vaccinated with their Covid-19 shot lacked protection against the variant. It is hard to draw firm conclusions from lab experiments on how the vaccines will work on the variants in humans.”
In a related article, SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern in the United States—Challenges and Opportunities, authors also express concern about reduced immune response to new variants.
It should be noted that many of the studies are lab-based and focus only on antibody responses, not cellular immune responses.
About the public’s health
CDC: U.S. life expectancy fell by a year during first half of 2020 due to COVID-19: “ Life expectancy in the United States declined by a year during the first half of 2020, due in large part to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data released Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
From January through June of last year, life expectancy at birth for the total population of the United States was 77.8 years, down from 78.8 years in 2019.”
USPSTF Advises Screening for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: “The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) screening at or after 24 weeks of pregnancy in asymptomatic individuals. This recommendation forms the basis of a draft recommendation statement published online Feb. 16.”
About health insurance
Biden picks another Obama veteran to oversee Medicare, Medicaid: “President Biden has selected Chiquita Brooks-LaSure to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, filling a major role in his health-care leadership team, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the decision.
Brooks-LaSure served in the Obama administration as a senior CMS official who helped implement the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion and insurance-market reforms. She also worked on Capitol Hill as a Democratic staff member for the House Ways and Means Committee, building ties with then-Rep. Xavier Becerra, Biden’s choice to lead the Health and Human Services department and who sat on the committee at the time.”
Trends in Low-Value Health Service Use and Spending in the US Medicare Fee-for-Service Program, 2014-2018: “This study found that among individuals with fee-for-service Medicare receiving any of 32 measured services, low-value care use and spending decreased marginally from 2014 to 2018, despite a national education campaign to address low-value care and increased attention on reducing health care waste.”
Reimbursement changes “from volume to value” have not yet been implemented. Until they are, we cannot expect to see these changes.
Biden admin appears to withdraw final rule aimed at streamlining prior authorization: “The Biden administration appears to have withdrawn a rule finalized last minute by the Trump administration that aims to streamline prior authorization, a major source of provider administrative burden… that press release no longer appears on CMS’ website, and the rule does not appear in the Federal Register.
CMS did not say why the rule appeared to be withdrawn.”
Biden wants a 'public option' health plan. Two Senate moderates say they have just the bill: Called Medicare-X, it would not lower the age of eligibility to 60 as had been previously discussed, but it proposes to:
“Allow Medicare to pay 50 percent more to rural hospitals and providers, up from a 25 percent allowance.
Require marketplace plans to fully cover primary care services with no cost-sharing for patients.
Fix the so-called “family glitch” in the Affordable Care Act, which bases a family's eligibility for marketplace subsidies on whether an employee's offer of workplace coverage was affordable for the individual but not necessarily affordable for the whole family.”
In a related article: Democrats' plan to expand ACA insurance would cost about $53B, CBO estimates.
Appeals court strikes down oncology group's lawsuit aimed at rolling back Medicare sequestration cuts: “A federal appeals court has struck down the Community Oncology Alliance’s lawsuit [filed in 2018] to get rid of a 2% cut to Medicare Part B payments installed via sequestration.”
Unfortunately since it was decided on jurisdictional grounds, the decision did not clarify this issue.
How Aetna, Anthem, Humana, Cigna and UnitedHealth performed in Q4: A good summary of the results. Keep in mind that CVS and UnitedHealth have incomes from non-health insurance sources (pharmacy and Optum-related services, respectively).
About hospitals and health systems
Association of Inclusion of Medicare Advantage Patients in Hospitals’ Risk-Standardized Readmission Rates, Performance, and Penalty Status: “In this cohort study, the inclusion of data from MA patients changed the penalty status of a substantial fraction of US hospitals for at least 1 of 3 reported conditions [acute myocardial infarction (AMI), congestive heart failure (CHF), or pneumonia]. This suggests that policy makers should consider including all hospital patients, regardless of insurance status, when assessing hospital quality measures.”
CHS sheds 18 hospitals, swings to $511M profit: Bigger is not always better (or more profitable). “Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, which operates 85 hospitals in 16 states, saw revenues decline in 2020 but ended the period in the black…
Looking at full-year 2020 results, the company posted net income of $511 million on revenues of $11.8 billion, compared to a net loss of $675 million on revenues of $13.2 billion in 2019.”
10 hospitals planning upgrades, expansions: FYI. Still amazed at the continued expansions.