Biden Signs Expansive Health, Climate and Tax Law “President Biden on Tuesday signed a long-awaited bill meant to reduce health costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and raise taxes on corporations and wealthy investors, capping more than a year of on-again, off-again negotiations and cementing his early economic legacy…
The bill, which Democrats named the Inflation Reduction Act, invests $370 billion in spending and tax credits in low-emission forms of energy to fight climate change. It extends federal health-insurance subsidies, allows the government to negotiate prescription drug prices for seniors on Medicare and is expected to reduce the federal budget deficit by about $300 billion over 10 years.”
About Covid-19
Profiling post-COVID syndrome across different variants of SARS-CoV-2 This preprint paper posits several different types of post-Covid syndrome:
”We identified distinct profiles of symptoms for post-COVID syndrome within and across variants: four endotypes were identified for infections due to the wild-type variant; seven for the alpha variant; and five for delta. Across all variants, a cardiorespiratory cluster of symptoms was identified. A second cluster related to central neurological, and a third to cases with the most severe and debilitating multi-organ symptoms. Gastrointestinal symptoms clustered in no more than two specific phenotypes per viral variant. The three main clusters were confirmed in an independent testing sample, and their functional impact was assessed.”
Multiple Shots of the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) Vaccine Protect Patients with Type 1 Diabetes from COVID-19 “Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), published a new paper in Cell Reports Medicine demonstrating the protective potential of multiple doses of the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine against COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study of patients with type 1 diabetes conducted at the start of the pandemic (before COVID-specific vaccines were available), the researchers found that 12.5% of placebo-treated individuals and 1% of BCG-treated individuals met criteria for confirmed COVID-19, yielding a vaccine effectiveness of 92%.
The BCG-vaccinated group also displayed protective effects against other infectious diseases, including fewer symptoms, lesser severity and fewer infectious disease events per patient. No BCG-related systemic adverse events occurred.”
About health insurance
Healthcare billing fraud: 10 recent cases FYI
About hospitals and healthcare systems
The 10 Largest Health Systems in the US FYI
FTC warns states against laws permitting hospital mergers under special conditions “The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is warning states away from certificates of public advantage (COPAs) legislation, cautioning that hospital mergers permitted under these laws still bring many of the detrimental effects of consolidation they purport to prevent.
State-level COPA laws allow hospitals to avoid federal antitrust enforcement should they demonstrate that a merger’s benefits outweigh the negative impacts of reduced market competition, such as higher prices and reduced quality of care.
The laws often come with specific terms such as price controls or mechanisms to pass along cost savings and efficiencies and are supervised by state departments of health and attorneys' general offices.
In a policy paper released Monday by the FTC, the agency said it has seen a ‘resurgence’ of the laws in recent years, including those passed by state legislatures ‘with the intent of exempting specific proposed hospital mergers from anticipated antitrust challenges.’”
About pharma
Newly launched U.S. drugs head toward record-high prices in 2022 “The median annual price of 13 novel drugs approved for chronic conditions by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration so far this year is $257,000, Reuters found.
They were in good company: seven other newly-launched drugs were priced above $200,000. Three other drugs launched in 2022 are used only intermittently and were not included in the calculation.”
Analysts rule out major industry impact from drug pricing negotiations “While it is hard to predict which drugs Medicare will target, BofA estimates that negotiations will lead to a 25% price reduction for the 25 drugs the program spends the most in 2026 and beyond. The firm does not expect the bill to cause a significant impact on industry growth.
Meanwhile, noting the limited scope of the provisions, UBS argues that Medicare negotiations under the bill are unlikely to be the worst-case scenario for the industry.”
The law’s initial impact will obviously not be immediate: however we will need to see how much else is implemented in the future, especially, purchasing Part B drugs and expansion of government limits to the private sector.
Merck bets big on circular RNA, paying $150M and dangling $3.5B in biobucks to work with Orna “The Big Pharma is making the upfront payment and committing to up to $3.5 billion in milestones to work with Orna to advance programs including engineered circular RNA (oRNA) vaccines and therapeutics against infectious diseases and cancers. Orna will retain rights to its oRNA-LNP platform and continue to advance other wholly owned programs internally.”
About the public’s health
FDA moves to make over-the-counter hearing aids available to millions “The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday moved to make hearing aids available to consumers to buy over the counter without a prescription or medical exam…
‘As early as mid-October, Americans will be able to purchase more affordable hearing aids over the counter at pharmacies and stores across the country,’ President Biden said…”
U.S. to provide states with up to 442,000 Jynneos doses to combat monkeypox “The U.S. government said on Monday it will provide states with up to 442,000 doses of Bavarian Nordic's Jynneos vaccine to combat the outbreak of monkeypox disease.
The allocation, as part of the Phase 3 of the national vaccine strategy, is double the number of doses originally anticipated, the Department of Health and Human Services said.
The government was initially planning to dispatch the doses in two segment but combined it together after the Food and Drug Administration last week allowed administering the shot intradermally…”
About healthcare IT
Facebook tracker compromised PHI of 1.3M Novant Health patients “Novant Health notified patients Aug. 12 that their protected health information may have been improperly disclosed because of a Facebook tracking tool used in a May 2020 marketing campaign.
In May, Novant Health launched a promotional campaign involving Facebook advertisements and a Meta tracking pixel which was placed on the health system's website, according to a press release from Novant.
The tracking tool was intended to help Novant Health track the campaign's success, but ended up allowing certain private information to be transmitted to Facebook's parent company Meta from the Novant Health website and MyChart patient portal. Novant discovered the possible disclosures June 17.”
About healthcare personnel
Revisiting the Time Needed to Provide Adult Primary Care “PCPs were estimated to require 26.7 h/day, comprising of 14.1 h/day for preventive care, 7.2 h/day for chronic disease care, 2.2 h/day for acute care, and 3.2 h/day for documentation and inbox management. With team-based care, PCPs were estimated to require 9.3 h per day (2.0 h/day for preventive care and 3.6 h/day for chronic disease care, 1.1 h/day for acute care, and 2.6 h/day for documentation and inbox management).”
Are there organizational and/or technical changes that would enhance efficiencies? Are all requirements equally productive?