About health care providers
DaVita, Fresenius team up to bring dialysis care out of their clinics and into the home: “DaVita Kidney Care will expand its use of home hemodialysis machines supplied by Fresenius Medical Care—including the smaller, portable and digitally connected devices Fresenius picked up in early 2019 through its long-awaited $1.9 billion acquisition deal for NxStage Medical.
The agreement will also grant DaVita patients access to Nx2me Connected Health, a platform that collects and shares individual treatment information with clinics and care teams—while the entire system will allow some to perform hemodialysis solo, or even while the patient and their care partner are asleep.”
What is interesting about this story is competitors are teaming up to accelerate a trend taking patients out of their facilities and into home treatment.
About the public’s health
Newly confirmed surgeon general to focus on COVID, opioids: “The Senate confirmed a soft-spoken physician as President Joe Biden’s surgeon general Tuesday. While Dr. Vivek Murthy says ending the coronavirus pandemic is his top priority, he’s also raised concerns over a relapsing opioid overdose crisis.”
About health insurance
CMS withdraws 3 proposed health rules: “The withdrawn rules include a revision to Medicare Part A enrollment requirements, altered dialysis coverage requirements for third party-payment programs and increased oversight of accrediting organizations.” For a full list and description of the executive orders under review, go to: Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Executive Order Submissions Under Review.
Anthem to buy home nursing management company: The management company “MyNexus currently provides clinical support services to 1.7 million Medicare Advantage members across 20 states.”
Such diversification by an insurance company is very unusual.
Evaluation of Hospital Cesarean Delivery–Related Profits and Rates in the United States: “In this cross-sectional study of US nationally representative hospital discharge data, hospitals with higher profits per cesarean procedure were associated with an increased probability of delivering newborns through cesarean birth.”
Do we still need studies showing that how you pay will influence the type and volume of services provided? This fact has been known for decades in healthcare.
Obamacare enrollment period extended beyond May as new insurance subsidies kick in: ”The Biden administration is extending for three more months a special opportunity for people to sign up for government-subsidized health insurance through the federally run marketplace.
Instead of ending May 15, the special enrollment period will run through Aug. 15 to give people more time to take advantage of the expanded subsidies included in the recently passed $1.9 trillion stimulus package.”
About Covid-19
Association of Age With SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Response: “The results of this study suggest that SARS-CoV-2 viral specific antibody response profiles are distinct in different age groups. Age-targeted strategies for disease screening and management as well as vaccine development may be warranted.”
Particularly, as expected, children had much higher antibody responses than adults.