About hospitals and healthcare systems
Fitch: Children's hospitals showing stronger liquidity, profitability than adult providers “Standalone nonprofit children’s hospitals have largely rebuffed the pandemic’s financial disruptions and are in a better position to "weather expected and unexpected challenges” including high labor costs, according to a new Fitch Ratings report.
Among a sample of 23 organizations, children’s hospitals increased their median days cash on hand from 396.1 days in fiscal 2020 to 416 days in fiscal 2021, the agency’s analysts wrote. Median cash to debt rose from 249.1% to 323.5%, they wrote.”
About pharma
Medicare Drug Negotiation and Rebate Group Formally Organized “The Biden administration has formally established the Medicare Drug Rebate and Negotiations Group to implement Medicare drug price negotiations and the inflation rebate program authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
Operating within the Center for Medicare, the new group, and the reorganization it required, was approved by HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and took effect Oct. 8, according to a summary document released Wednesday that will be published in the Federal Register Oct. 14.”
About the public’s health
USDA awards $110M toward improving rural healthcare “The U.S. Department of Agriculture has invested $110 million toward healthcare facilities in rural areas.
The grant will affect 208 rural facilities and help provide services to 5 million people across 43 states. Funds will go toward renovating, building and equipping facilities and be distributed through the American Rescue Plan Act, according to an Oct. 12 news release.”
HHS Announces Initiatives to Address Language Barriers in Care Access “The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announcedseveral commitments to ease language barriers preventing care access…
As a first step, HHS announced it will relaunch its Language Access Steering Committee (Steering Committee) to enhance communication with LEP [limited English proficiency] patients. Alongside the Steering Committee, HHS will require all agencies to update their language access plans.
In concert with the committee relaunch, the HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) announced it will distribute more than $4 million in grants to 11 organizations for an initiative called Promoting Equitable Access to Language Services in Health and Human Services.
Through the three-year initiative, organizations will develop and test methods for informing patients with LEP about accessibility to language services in healthcare-related settings.”
GSK says RSV vaccine offers "exceptional" protection in older adults “GSK announced Thursday that its experimental vaccine RSVPreF3 OA demonstrated overall efficacy of 82.6% against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)-lower respiratory tract disease (LRTD) in adults aged 60 years and above. The company said earlier this year that the primary endpoint of the Phase III AReSVi 006 study was "exceeded," without providing further details at the time.”
About health technology
Skip the doctor's office? Quest Diagnostics pitches consumer testing in new ad campaign “Quest Diagnostics’ line-up of 50+ tests, from sexually transmitted disease screenings to allergy and metabolic panels, lets people skip the line at doctors’ offices and get results at home. And now it’s launching its largest inaugural consumer marketing campaign in support…
The 30-second commercial directs viewers to the Quest Health website where they can browse and purchase its more than 50 tests — from $39 for gout or cholesterol information to $349 suites of men’s or women’s assessments. Interested shoppers’ tests are ordered by a physician digitally, scheduled at their nearby Quest Diagnostic labs, and results are then delivered to their private MyQuest portal, said Ryan Anderson, Quest’s executive director of consumer marketing. Its biggest selling category to date? STD tests. While people can’t use traditional insurance for the Quest Health tests, they can use funds from health flexible spending accounts (FSAs).”