About Covid-19
U.S. Supreme Court nixes religious challenge to New York vaccine mandate “The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday declined to hear a challenge to New York's mandate that healthcare sector workers be vaccinated against COVID-19 brought by a group of doctors, nurses and others who objected on religious grounds.”
About health insurance
Aetna to roll back controversial prior authorization policy for cataract surgery “Under the program, Aetna required prior authorization for all cataract surgeries beginning on July 1, 2021. The policy was later modified amid outcry from ophthalmologists and other eye care experts, who urged the insurer to fully remove the requirements.
In a statement to Fierce, Aetna said that the program will be discontinued as of July 1, and that it chose to do so after gathering real-time data on cataract surgeries.”
Another instance of spending more than the resultant savings would realize.
Some medical debt is being removed from US credit reports “Starting Friday, the three major U.S. credit reporting companies will stop counting paid medical debt on the reports that banks, potential landlords and others use to judge creditworthiness. The companies also will start giving people a year to resolve delinquent medical debt that has been sent to collections before reporting it — up from six months previously.
Next year, the companies also will stop counting unpaid medical debt under at least $500.
The companies say these moves will wipe out nearly 70% of the medical debt listed on consumer credit reports.”
California first to cover health care for all immigrants “California on Thursday became the first state to guarantee free health care for all low-income immigrants living in the country illegally, a move that will provide coverage for an additional 764,000 people at an eventual cost of about $2.7 billion a year.”
Payers must post negotiated prices starting today: 8 things to know “CMS' Transparency in Coverage final rule took effect July 1, requiring payers nationwide to publish the cost of nearly every healthcare service they've negotiated with providers.”
Worth a read,
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Fortune/Merative [Formerly IBMWatson Health]100 Top Hospitals 2022: Health Systems The top 15 health systems had better survival rates, fewer patient complications, fewer healthcare-associated infections, better long-term outcomes, better 30-day mortality/revisitation rates and more.
About pharma
Novartis to eliminate up to 8000 jobs under cost-cutting plan “Novartis disclosed Tuesday that it expects to cut as many as 8000 jobs, or roughly 7% of its global workforce, including some 1400 positions in its home base of Switzerland, as it looks to knock off at least $1 billion in expenses by 2024. The company had confirmed in April that there would be layoffs as part of a broader effort to merge its pharmaceuticals and oncology businesses into a single innovative medicines unit with separate US and international commercial organisations, and to boost sales by at least 4% through 2026.”
Novartis buys FDA priority review voucher from bankrupt Mallinckrodt for $100M FYI: The latest market value for such vouchers.
About the public’s health
Kentucky Court Blocks Abortion Bans “A Kentucky state court today granted a request from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Kentucky, and Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai‘i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky for a restraining order (RO). The RO blocks two laws passed in 2019 that stopped abortion services in the state last Friday: a complete abortion ban that the Kentucky Attorney General threatened to enforce following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade, and a six-week ban that has been blocked by a federal court.”
This Planned Parenthood Is Now Demanding Proof of Residency for Some Abortions “Planned Parenthood of Montana will no longer provide medication abortions for patients from South Dakota, Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, and will now require proof of residency for the treatment, according to an internal email obtained by The Daily Beast.
In a Thursday morning email to the state’s staff, Montana Planned Parenthood President and CEO Martha Fuller attributed the new rules for non-surgical abortions to the ‘rapidly changing’ legal landscape around the right to choose.”
HHS, AMA dismayed by Supreme Court's controversial EPA power plant ruling “The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the American Medical Association (AMA) chided the 6-3 ruling on Wednesday that restricts the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA's) ability to regulate carbon emissions via the Clean Air Act…
Many justices agreed with coal companies and several red states that Congress didn’t give EPA the authority to devise the emission caps outlined in the Obama-era rule, which has never gone into effect.”
Another assault on the public’s health.
74 nonprofit payers launch SDOH center aimed at reducing health disparities “The Association for Community Affiliated Plans has launched a new center aimed at offering resources to payers and policymakers that will support initiatives around social determinants of health and reductions in health disparities.
The ACAP Center for Social Determinants of Health Innovation will provide policy reports, market research and roundtable educational events that will help key stakeholders address social determinants that impact an individual's health…
The new center will draw on the knowledge and resources of the association's 74 nonprofit members that collectively serve 22 million beneficiaries nationwide. Lexington, Mass.-based consulting firm Spring Street Exchange will administer the center.”
White patients’ physical responses to healthcare treatments are influenced by provider race and gender “…we found that White patients were less physiologically responsive to the expectations set by Black as compared to Asian providers. For a variety of reasons, a Black provider may be less consistent with the image of a doctor than an Asian provider. What we did not anticipate, however, is that White patients would respond to the expectations set by the Asian providers in the same manner as the expectations set by the White providers. White patients responded to White and Asian providers similarly…”
About healthcare finance
Blueprint rounds up $1.25B to grow cancer portfolio through internal R&D and dealmaking “The Massachusetts biotech is selling certain royalties to its targeted cancer drugs Ayvakit and Roche-partnered Gavreto and securing additional money for future business development in separate deals with Sixth Street and Royalty Pharma. The two agreements give Blueprint $575 million immediately in cash, and the total financing could reach $1.25 billion.
The transactions allow Blueprint to benefit now from its marketed meds and pipeline prospects, particularly when it comes to Ayvakit’s potential expansion into non-advanced systemic mastocytosis…”