About Covid-19
All U.S. adults now eligible for COVID-19 vaccine: how to find a shot: “American adults in all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are now eligible for the coronavirus vaccine as of Monday, meeting President Biden's goal of April 19 eligibility…
Perhaps the easiest resource to use to find a vaccine — and one the Centers for Disease Control points people toward — is VaccineFinder.org.”
New U.S. COVID cases fall 0.4% last week, after rising for four weeks: “Health experts say new cases have plateaued at a high level as more infectious variants of the virus offset progress made in vaccinations. The country logged nearly 70,000 new cases per day in the week ended April 18, compared with 55,000 new cases a day in March and about 30,000 new cases this time last year.”
J&J vaccine should be administered with warning label, EU regulator says: “The European Medicines Agency, the European Union's equivalent to the FDA, said April 20 that the bloc should not ban Johnson and Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine, but a label should be added to warn about the rare possibility of blood clots.”
‘I’m still a zero’: Vaccine-resistant Republicans warn that their skepticism is worsening: “Although more than half of U.S. adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, more than 40 percent of Republicans have consistently told pollsters they’re not planning to be vaccinated.” The article offers why participants in a small focus group were not swayed by certain information.
Statement on the seventh meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic: One recommendation from the WHO in this long list Is: “Do not [emphasis in original] require proof of vaccination as a condition of entry, given the limited (although growing) evidence about the performance of vaccines in reducing transmission and the persistent inequity in the global vaccine distribution. States Parties are strongly encouraged to acknowledge the potential for requirements of proof of vaccination to deepen inequities and promote differential freedom of movement.”
COVID-19 neuropathology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Hospital: The brain abnormalities in COVID-19 patients are thought to be the result of systemic inflammation rather that direct viral infection of the central nervous system.
About health insurance
AHA counters site-neutral Medicare payments with study highlighting hospitals' more complex outpatients: ”The American Hospital Association (AHA) is reinforcing its longstanding position against the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS') site-neutral payments with new research suggesting hospital outpatient departments are treating poorer, more complex Medicare patients than independent physicians' offices are.
The study, which was conducted for the AHA by KNG Health Consulting and published on its website, reviewed claims from a 5% sample of Medicare beneficiaries who had at least one visit to an outpatient setting between Jan. 1, 2012, and June 3, 2019…
The linchpin of AHA’s interest in the two settings is a legal back and forth regarding the 2019 Outpatient Prospective Payment System rule (PDF), which brings reimbursement to each setting in line with the end goal of reducing payment disparity.”
Insurers are integrating telehealth companies:
Evernorth Completes Acquisition of MDLIVE to Expand Access to Virtual Care: “Evernorth, the health services portfolio of Cigna Corporation, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of MDLIVE, a privately held, leading 24/7 virtual care delivery platform. The transaction, first announced on February 26, expands Evernorth’s capabilities to lower the cost of care – while increasing access to health care providers – through virtual visits that can be accessed from the home or anywhere.” And:
Optum launches virtual care offering nationwide: 5 things to know: “The new virtual care product, dubbed Optum Virtual Care, is now live in all 50 states, said OptumHealth CEO Wyatt Decker during UnitedHealth Group's Q1 2021 earnings call transcript…”
Humana overcharged Medicare nearly $200M, inspector general finds: “Health insurer Humana failed to comply with some federal coding requirements, resulting in overpayments of $197.7 million, according to an inspector general's report released April 20.
Under the Medicare Advantage program, CMS makes monthly payments to organizations according to a system of risk adjustment determined by the health status of each enrollee. According to the federal audit, Humana failed to submit some diagnosis codes to CMS for use in the risk adjustment program.”
Health insurance execs push back against tax in Connecticut: “In a letter to Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, payer executives argued against a bill that would impose a $50 million tax on insurance companies, potentially driving businesses out of the state, according to the Hartford Courant.
The April 13 letter was signed by Anthem CEO Gail Boudreaux, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan CEO Thomas Croswell, Cigna CEO David Cordani, UnitedHealth Group President and COO Dirk McMahon and CVS Health CEO Karen Lynch.”
About the public’s health
Biden Administration Considering Rule to Cut Nicotine in Cigarettes: “The Biden administration is considering requiring tobacco companies to lower the nicotine in all cigarettes sold in the U.S. to levels at which they are no longer addictive, according to people familiar with the matter.
Administration officials are considering the policy as they approach a deadline for declaring the administration’s intentions on another tobacco question: whether or not to ban menthol cigarettes.”
Toward a fine-scale population health monitoring system: “Epidemiology research often relies on definitions of race and ethnicity, but these population labels may not adequately capture disease burdens and environmental factors impacting specific sub-populations. Here, we propose a framework for repurposing data from electronic health records (EHRs) in concert with genomic data to explore the demographic ties that can impact disease burdens…This work reinforces the utility of linking genomic data to EHRs and provides a framework toward fine-scale monitoring of population health.”
About healthcare personnel
Healthcare loses 44,000 jobs during Q1 2021, while spending, prices continue to grow: “Employment in the U.S. healthcare industry has dropped by 44,000 jobs over the course of the first quarter of 2021…
These job losses came alongside continued spending growth recovery and increases in overall healthcare prices.
Modest employment gains in February and March were unable to offset January’s substantial decline of 80,000 healthcare jobs.
Many of these losses were felt among hospitals, which lost 37,000 jobs in the first quarter, and nursing and residential care, which dropped 38,000 jobs. On the other hand, ambulatory care settings picked up 37,000 new jobs in the first three months of the year.
Overall, the healthcare industry has lost a total of 557,000 jobs since February 2020’s pre-COVID-19 peak, a 3.1% decline.”
About pharma
Relatively Few Drugs Account for a Large Share of Medicare Prescription Drug Spending: Among the study’s findings:
—”The 10 Top-Selling Part D Drugs - Less than 1% of Covered Drugs - Accounted for 16% of Net Total Part D Spending in 2019” and
—”The Top 50 Part B Drugs - Less Than 10% of Covered Drugs - Accounted for 80% of Total Part B Drug Spending in 2019”
Cost-control efforts will not be affected by such concentrated spending.
California counties seek billions of dollars from drugmakers in opioid trial: “Johnson & Johnson, Teva, Endo and AbbVie’s Allergan are accused of falsely marketing painkillers and knowingly underplaying the risk of addiction in order to increase sales, in litigation brought by three California counties and the city of Oakland, which are seeking billions of dollars in damages.”
Six Individuals Sentenced for Nearly $8 Million Health Care Fraud Involving Northern Virginia Pharmacies: “According to court documents, Mohamed Abdalla, 48, of Allendale, New Jersey, owned multiple pharmacies in northern Virginia, including Medex Health Pharmacy in Falls Church and Royal Care Pharmacy in Fairfax. As the owner of these pharmacies, Abdalla oversaw and executed two related schemes to defraud health care benefit programs. One scheme involved the payment or receipt of unlawful kickbacks for expensive drugs and devices in violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. Another scheme involved billing federal, state, and private health care benefit programs for numerous expensive drugs and devices that were not medically necessary, not prescribed by a physician, or were not received by a beneficiary.”
About healthcare IT
2021 White Paper: Setting Healthcare on FHIR [Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources]: A good monograph updating the status of FHIR and IT interoperability, in general.
Promise and peril: How artificial intelligence is transforming health care: A good, in-depth (221 pages) look at this topic from STAT and the Commonwealth Fund.