About Covid-19
The US is on a Covid plateau, and no one's sure what will happen next “The United States seems to have hit a Covid-19 plateau, with more than 40,000 people hospitalized and more than 400 deaths a day consistently over the past month or so…
‘We've never really cracked that: why these surges go up and down, how long it stays up and how fast it comes down,’ said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research. ‘All these things are still somewhat of a mystery.’
BA.5 remains the dominant subvariant in the US for now, causing most new cases as it has since the last week of June.”
CDC eases Covid-19 quarantine and testing guidelines as it marks a new phase in pandemic “People who are not up to date with their Covid-19 vaccines and who are exposed to someone infected with the coronavirus no longer need to quarantine, according to updated recommendations issued Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Instead, they should just wear a mask for 10 days in indoor settings and test on day 5, according to the guidance. They were previously recommended to stay home.
The new guidelines could also ease the testing burden on schools. While people showing symptoms of Covid should be tested, the recommendations say broader screening “might not be cost-effective in general community settings, especially if Covid-19 prevalence is low.” Such widespread testing could still be done in certain settings like long-term care facilities, correctional facilities, and homeless shelters.”
About health insurance
Eight Charged in Alleged $150M Crestar Labs Fraud Scheme “According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announcement, the individuals charged, including the owner of a series of Tennessee-based labs known as Crestar Labs, LLC, were allegedly involved in a scheme in which marketers signed fake contracts and were paid kickbacks to target elderly beneficiaries of federal healthcare programs at senior health fairs, nursing homes, and other locations for their genetic material and urine analysis samples.
That material was then used in genetic testing approved by telehealth doctors who had no interaction with the patients. In many cases, the patients and the doctors actually treating them never received the test results, the DOJ alleges. Crestar Labs’ owner and the others involved in the scheme allegedly paid bribes and kickbacks for tests and doctor’s orders “without regard to medical necessity” and falsely billed Medicare and Medicaid more than $150 million, the DOJ statement adds.”
FTC Action Against Benefytt Results in $100 Million in Refunds for Consumers Tricked into Sham Health Plans and Charged Exorbitant Junk Fees “The Federal Trade Commission is taking action against healthcare company Benefytt Technologies, two subsidiaries, former CEO Gavin Southwell, and former vice president of sales Amy Brady, for lying to consumers about their sham health insurance plans and using deceptive lead generation websites to lure them in. According to the FTC complaint, Benefytt also illegally charged people exorbitant junk fees for unwanted add-on products without their permission. The proposed court orders require Benefytt to pay $100 million in refunds and prohibit the company from lying about their products or charging illegal junk fees. Southwell and Brady will be permanently banned from selling or marketing any healthcare-related product, and Brady will also be banned from telemarketing.”
Judge rejects New York doctor's challenge to surprise billing ban “A New York doctor has lost a challenge to the recently enacted federal law prohibiting surprise medical bills for out-of-network services.
U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in Brooklyn late Wednesday denied surgeon Daniel Haller's motion for an injunction blocking the law, which took effect in January, and dismissed his lawsuit claiming that it is unconstitutional.”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Colorado's new hospital price transparency law adds 'real teeth' to weak federal enforcement, experts say “The bipartisan “Prohibit Collection Hospital Not Disclosing Prices” was signed into law by Colorado Governor Jared Polis in June and went into effect Wednesday.
It prevents hospitals or their collectors from initiating or pursuing debt collection from a patient if the hospital’s website was not in compliance with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)’ price transparency requirements at the time services were delivered, according to the bill’s text.”
Perhaps state-level actions will correct federal inaction in addressing widespread non-compliance (see yesterday’s blog).
About pharma
New drug candidate fights off more than 300 drug-resistant bacteria “Urinary tract infections are common, yet are increasingly tough to treat because the bacteria that cause them are becoming resistant to many antibiotics. Now, in ACS Central Science, researchers report a new molecule that inhibits drug-resistant bacteria in lab experiments, as well as in mice with pneumonia and urinary tract infections. The researchers say that this compound, fabimycin, could one day be used to treat challenging infections in humans…
The team started with an antibiotic that was active against gram-positive bacteria and made a series of structural modifications that they believed would allow it to act against gram-negative strains. One of the modified compounds, dubbed fabimycin, proved potent against more than 300 drug-resistant clinical isolates, while remaining relatively inactive toward certain gram-positive pathogens and some typically harmless bacteria that live in or on the human body. In addition, the new molecule reduced the amount of drug-resistant bacteria in mice with pneumonia or urinary tract infections to pre-infection levels or below, performing as well as or better than existing antibiotics at similar doses. The researchers say the results show that fabimycin could one day be an effective treatment for stubborn infections.”
About the public’s health
Federal Health Agencies Unveil National Tool to Measure Health Impacts of Environmental Burdens The “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Environmental Justice, announce the release of the Environmental Justice Index (EJI). The EJI builds off existing environmental justice indexes to provide a single environmental justice score for local communities across the United States so that public health officials can identify and map areas most at risk for the health impacts of environmental burden.
It is the first national, geographic-driven tool designed to measure the cumulative impacts of environmental burden through the lenses of human health and health equity. Cumulative impacts are the total harm to human health that occurs from the combination of environmental burden such as pollution and poor environmental conditions, pre-existing health conditions, and social factors.”
Monkeypox vaccine maker voices concerns on U.S. dose-splitting plan “The manufacturer of the only vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to protect against monkeypox privately warned senior Biden health officials about their plan to split doses and change how the shots are delivered…
‘It would have been prudent’ to conduct further studies before overhauling the nation’s monkeypox vaccine strategy, [Bavarian Nordic CEO Paul] Chaplin said, adding that his company had been ‘inundated with calls from U.S. state government officials with questions and concerns’ about how to implement the new plan.
In interviews Wednesday, Biden administration officials acknowledged Bavarian Nordic’s concerns but said they would not affect their vaccine strategy.”
Longitudinal Assessments of Neurocognitive Performance and Brain Structure Associated With Initiation of Tobacco Use in Children, 2016 to 2021 “In this national cohort study of 17 073 children with neuroimaging outcomes, a significant association was found of early-age initiation of tobacco use with lower crystalized cognition composite score and impaired brain development in total cortical area and volume. Region of interest analysis also revealed smaller cortical area and volume across frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes.
Meaning These findings suggest that initiation of tobacco use is associated with inferior neurocognitive functions; evidence-based intervention strategies and tobacco control policies should prevent tobacco initiation at a young age.”
About healthcare IT
Telehealth Utilization Grew 10.2 Percent Nationally in May 2022 “n May 2022, for the second straight month, telehealth utilization, as measured by telehealth's share of all medical claim lines, grew nationally and in every US census region (Midwest, Northeast, South, West), according to FAIR Health's Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker.1 National telehealth utilization increased 10.2 percent, from 4.9 percent of medical claim lines in April to 5.4 percent in May. Regionally, the greatest increase was in the Midwest, where telehealth utilization grew 17.6 percent in May. The data represent the privately insured population, including Medicare Advantage and excluding Medicare Fee-for-Service and Medicaid.”
July-reported healthcare breaches exposed data on nearly 4M patients “About 3.9 million patients had data compromised in healthcare data breaches reported to the federal government last month, nearly half of which were attributed to a cyberattack at one payment vendor.”
Digital Divide Consults and Devices for VA Video Connect [VVC] Appointments A report from the VA’s OIG.
The VA spent $11.3 million to purchase mobile devices for beneficiaries who could not afford to by them. The purpose was to facilitate appointment scheduling and telehealth appointments. The OIG found that, among other things, “About 49 Percent of the Patients Who Were Sent a Device Went on to Complete a VVC Appointment” and the money was not wisely spent.
About healthcare personnel
Biden to name Monica Bertagnolli as National Cancer Institute director “Harvard Medical School surgeon Dr. Monica Bertagnolli is poised to become the first woman to lead the National Cancer Institute after President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he plans to appoint her to the position.
Bertagnolli currently serves as the Richard E. Wilson professor of surgery in the field of surgical oncology at Harvard as well as a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital.”