About Covid-19
Biden deploys military medical teams to 6 more 'hard-hit' states, doubles order for free at-home COVID tests: “President Joe Biden announced today the deployment of additional military medical teams to hospitals in six “hard-hit” states alongside plans to procure and ship 500 million more rapid COVID-19 tests for home use.
…President Biden said that more than 800 military and other federal emergency personnel have been deployed across 24 states, tribes and territories to support healthcare providers’ COVID-19 response. Further, more than 14,000 National Guard members have been activated in 49 states…"
COVID-19 Therapeutics for Nonhospitalized Patients: A great and short subject review in today’s JAMA Network.
COVID-19 Testing Chain Opened Pop-Ups Across The US. Now, It’s Temporarily Closing Amid Federal Investigation And Mounting Complaints: “The Center for COVID Control, a locally [Chicago] based chain of testing sites, is under national scrutiny and has been cited at the highest level by a federal agency as reports come in from across the country of chaos at testing sites and confusion over results.
Amid the heightened scrutiny, the center announced Thursday it will close for a week starting Friday…
Again and again, people going to Center for COVID Control sites have reported getting negatives there — only to get a positive elsewhere. Others have never gotten results, or gotten them so late the test was effectively useless. Some people who didn’t even test at the sites were still sent results.”
Florida won't be Biden's 'biomedical police,' DeSantis' office says after Supreme Court ruling: “Florida won’t be enforcing the Biden Administration’s mandatory vaccination policy for health care workers upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, a spokeswoman for the governor’s office said Thursday.”
The enforcement would be federal if hospitals do not comply with this provision, which is now part of Medicare and Medicaid conditions of participation in those programs.
About health insurance
MedPAC votes on 2023 payment recommendations: “The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission today recommended that Congress provide a current law update for the hospital inpatient and outpatient prospective payment systems in fiscal year 2023, currently estimated at 2.5% for inpatient and 2.0% for outpatient.
In other action, MedPAC recommended that:
Congress reduce 2023 payment rates for skilled nursing facilities, home health agencies and inpatient rehabilitation facilities by 5%;
Congress update 2023 payment rates for long-term care hospitals by the amount specified in current law;
Congress update 2023 Medicare payment rates for physician and other health professional services by the amount specified in current law, and the Department of Health and Human Services require clinicians to use a claims modifier to identify audio-only telehealth services;
Congress eliminate the 2023 update to the Medicare conversion factor for ambulatory surgical centers, and the Department of Health and Human Services require ASCs to report cost data; and
Congress eliminate the 2023 update to Medicare base payment rates for hospice providers, and the Department of Health and Human Services require hospices to report telehealth services on Medicare claims.”
U.S. Attorney Announces The Arrest Of 13 Individuals For $100 Million Healthcare Fraud, Money Laundering, And Bribery Scheme: “U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said: “The thirteen defendants charged in today’s indictments are alleged to have collectively perpetrated one of the largest no-fault insurance frauds in history. In carrying out their massive scheme, among other methods, they allegedly bribed 911 operators, hospital employees, and others for confidential motor vehicle accident victim information. With this information, they then endangered victims by subjecting them to unnecessary and often painful medical procedures, in order to fraudulently overbill insurance companies. Schemes exploiting no-fault insurance laws – which ironically exist to make insurance more affordable – also result in higher costs, and unfairly burden all consumers in the auto insurance market.”
Boca Lab Owner Admits To $6.9M Medical Testing Scheme: “The owner of a Boca Raton toxicology lab pled guilty in Florida federal court Thursday to billing Medicare for $6. 9 million worth of improperly bundled COVID-19 and genetic testing orders obtained through bribery. Christopher Licata, 45, copped to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and agreed to pay a combined $4. 3 million in forfeiture and restitution. The Delray Beach resident had been scheduled to stand trial next week on the government's April indictment. Licata admitted that between 2018 and 2021, he paid bribes to "patient brokers" Juan Nava Ruiz and Eric Frank, who in turn recruited Medicare beneficiaries. . . “
As omicron surges, HealthCare.gov sign-up deadline arrives: “Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Thursday that about 14.1 million people have enrolled or renewed coverage as of Jan. 8. That’s a gain of roughly 2 million covered through HealthCare.gov and state-run insurance marketplaces. Two GOP-led states — Florida and Texas — are seeing particularly strong sign-ups.”
Justices debate state’s right to take tort recoveries from Medicaid beneficiaries: “Monday’s argument in Gallardo v. Marstiller displayed a bench surprisingly divided over a relatively simple question of statutory interpretation. The topic is what to do when a state Medicaid program pays for injuries that a beneficiary suffers, if the beneficiary later recovers a settlement from a third party that caused the injury. All agree that the state can take the portion of the settlement that addresses past medical expenses. The problem, if the settlement for past medical expenses is not enough to repay the expenses already paid by Medicaid, is whether the state also can take the part of the settlement that reflects future medical expenses.”
HRSA Expands Preventive Care Coverage Under ACA for Women, Children: “The ACA and current HRSA guidelines require certain group health plans to offer coverage for preventive health services with no out-of-pocket costs. The administration has updated these guidelines to include coverage for double electric breast pumps with no co-pay or deductible. The new guidelines also include universal suicide risk screening for adolescents.”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Factors Associated With Overuse of Health Care Within US Health Systems: “In this cross-sectional analysis, we identified occurrences of 17 low-value services in 3745 hospitals and affiliated outpatient sites. Hospitals were linked to 676 health systems in the US using the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) Compendium of Health Systems. The participants were 100% of Medicare beneficiaries with claims from 2016 to 2018.”
”In this cross-sectional study of 676 US health care systems, those that were overusing health care had more beds, had fewer primary care physicians, had more physician practice groups, were more likely to be investor owned, and were less likely to include a major teaching hospital.”
2021 M&A in Review: A New Phase in Healthcare Partnerships: Trends in the data for 2021 include the following:
The trend throughout 2021 was a smaller number of transactions being offset with a higher percentage of large transactions. Eight of the announced transactions in 2021 were ‘mega mergers’ (transactions in which the seller or smaller partner by revenue had more than $1 billion in annual revenue). This year had the largest percentage of announced ‘mega merger’ transactions in the last six years at 16.3%, almost double the percentage (8.9%) in 2020.
Organizations with high credit quality were the smaller partner in a significant percentage of 2021 announced transactions, in line with 2020 levels and historical peaks. In more than one out of every 10 transactions, the smaller partner had a credit rating of A- or higher in 2021.
As previously mentioned, the number of transactions in 2021 was down; however, the average size of smaller partner by annual revenue increased significantly to $619 million, up from $388 million in 2020. Since 2011, average smaller partner size by annual revenue has increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of approximately 8.0%.
Activity by not-for-profit health systems as both acquirer and seller increased as a percentage of total transactions in 2021. Combined, transactions involving a not-for-profit partner represented 87% of announced transactions, compared with 81% in 2020.”
About pharma
Martin Shkreli is ordered to pay $64 million and is banned from the pharma industry for life: ““Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli was ordered to pay $64.6 million in profits and was banned for life from the pharmaceutical industry for an infamous episode several years ago in which his company purchased an old, lifesaving medicine and then boosted the price by 4,000% overnight.”
Association of Hormonal Contraceptive Use With Adverse Health Outcomes: Recent public health proposals to move oral contraceptives to OTC status could benefit from this study:
”In this umbrella review of 58 meta-analyses of randomized clinical trials and cohort studies describing 156 associations between hormonal contraceptive use and adverse health outcomes among women, no associations with adverse outcomes, including cardiovascular and cancer risk, were supported by high-quality evidence. However, the association between the use of a levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system and reductions in endometrial polyps associated with tamoxifen use was graded as having high-quality evidence.”
FDA Warning: Buprenorphine to Treat Opioid Use Disorder Can Cause Dental Problems: The problems include tooth decay; dental abscesses/infection; tooth erosion; fillings falling out; and, in some cases, total tooth loss.
About the public’s health
Eliminating the FDA’s blood donation ban on men who have sex with men would help ease the U.S. shortage: A good discussion of the headline’s proposal in the face of the Red Cross’ statement of sever blood shortage. “Studies report no risk to the blood supply in other countries that do not ban donations from this group of men….
UCLA researchers say lifting the ban would mean as many as 350,000 new donors and could treat more than a million people.”
About healthcare IT
Talkspace faces securities fraud class-action suit as consumer revenue declines: “The digital health company, which connects patients with licensed therapists or psychiatrists for video or text conversations, has been accused of misleading investors before it went public last year by misrepresenting its financials and growth.
Namely, the class-action suit filed Jan. 7 alleges Talkspace failed to disclose critical growth headwinds, including increased advertising and customer acquisition costs and worsening growth and gross margin trends, and overvalued its accounts receivable from certain health plan clients.”
About healthcare personnel
Military Brass, Judges Among Professions at New Image Lows: “For the 20th straight year, nurses lead Gallup's annual ranking of professions for having high honesty and ethics, eclipsing medical doctors in second place by 14 points -- 81% vs. 67%. Grade-school teachers (64%), pharmacists (63%) and military officers (61%) round out the top five most revered professions in this year's list, with more than six in 10 Americans viewing each as highly ethical.”
About health technology
A good summary of this week’s virtual JPM Conference from FirstWord Pharma:
Spotlight On: The JP Morgan Healthcare Conference – Our key takeaways Part I
Spotlight On: The JP Morgan Healthcare Conference – Our key takeaways Part II