About Covid-19
Nirmatrelvir [Paxlovid] Use and Severe Covid-19 Outcomes during the Omicron Surge “Among patients 65 years of age or older, the rates of hospitalization and death due to Covid-19 were significantly lower among those who received nirmatrelvir than among those who did not. No evidence of benefit was found in younger adults.”
About health insurance/insurers
Amazon plans to shut Amazon Care service amid One Medical overlap “Amazon.com Inc. is closing its primary care and telehealth service, a sudden move that follows the company’s deal to buy the One Medical chain of clinics.
Amazon Care, which was launched in 2019, will close by the end of the year, Senior Vice President Neil Lindsay said in an email to the company’s health care team…
’Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting, and wasn’t going to work long-term.’
Medicare Advantage in 2022: Enrollment Update and Key Trends An excellent update from the KFF. Two statistics stand out: 48% of Medicare eligibles now belong to a MA plan; that number is expected to grow to 61% by 2032.
Evaluation of Spending Differences Between Beneficiaries in Medicare Advantage and the Medicare Shared Savings Program “In this economic evaluation of 15 763 MA and MSSP beneficiaries between 2014 and 2018, spending was 22% to 26% higher for MSSP beneficiaries than for MA beneficiaries even after controlling for detailed clinical risk factors. This was accounted for by higher outpatient hospital spending for MSSP beneficiaries.”
NO SURPRISES ACT QPA CALCULATION QUESTIONED FOR VIOLATION IN NEW STUDY “In possible violation of the No Surprises Act, health insurance company calculations of qualified payment amounts (QPA) for anesthesiology, emergency medicine, and radiology services likely include rates from primary care provider (PCP) contracts, a new study says…
This method may violate the No Surprises Act law and produce insurer-calculated QPAs that do not represent typical payments for these services, the study said.”
About pharma
Novartis to spin off generics business Sandoz next year “Novartis plans to spin off its underperforming generics unit Sandoz to sharpen its focus on its patented prescription medicines, the Swiss group said on Thursday, acknowledging it had not received any formal offers for the business to date.”
And in the Financial Times: Founded by the Sandoz family, the business merged with Ciba-Geigy to create Novartis in 1996. Drugs manufactured by Sandoz, which employs about 20,000 people and generates almost $10bn in annual sales, are a staple of medicine cabinets in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.”
Percentage of Heavy Drinking Days Following Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy vs Placebo in the Treatment of Adult Patients With Alcohol Use Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial “In this double-blind randomized clinical trial with 93 participants, the percentage of heavy drinking days during 32 weeks of follow-up was significantly lower in the psilocybin group than in the diphenhydramine group.
Meaning The results in this trial showed that psilocybin administered in combination with psychotherapy produced robust decreases in the percentage of heavy drinking days compared with those produced by active placebo and psychotherapy.”
About the public’s health
Pfizer Announces Positive Top-Line Data from Phase 3 Trial of Older Adults for its Bivalent Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Vaccine Candidate “Vaccine efficacy of 85.7% was observed in participants with more severe disease primary endpoint of lower respiratory tract illness (LRTI-RSV) defined by analysis of three or more RSV-associated symptoms
—Investigational vaccine was well-tolerated with no safety concerns
—Based on the findings of this pre-planned, interim efficacy analysis, Pfizer intends to submitfor regulatory approval in fall 2022”
Mental Health Care: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Excellent review of problems addressing mental health delivery in the US.
Judge blocks part of Idaho’s abortion law from taking effect “The Biden administration on Wednesday scored its first legal victory since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, convincing a judge to block the portion of an Idaho law that criminalizes performing an abortion on a woman to protect her health.
The law, which was set to take effect on Thursday, bans abortions except in cases involving rape, incest or when a woman’s life is in danger — and does not contain an exception for when a pregnant person’s health is at risk…
In a ruling late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill said the statute violates a federal act that requires hospitals participating in the federally funded Medicare program to provide medical care when a person’s life or health is at stake.”
About healthcare IT
2022 Healthcare Data Breach Report Here are the major takeaways from data collected over the first six months of 2022:
The total number of breaches is down 6% when comparing the first half of 2022 with the first half of 2021. Total breaches have declined for three consecutive six-month periods, and 2022 may see the first decline in annual breaches since Critical Insight began tracking the data. But, the yearly total is still expected to be above pre- pandemic levels.
Attackers seem to be shifting their focus away from large healthcare facilities, big targets that might yield the most data but also tend to have the strongest defenses, to smaller hospital systems and specialty clinics that might not have the same level of security preparedness, staff size, or budget. Hackers are also targeting physician groups. The number of attacks on physician groups has increased from 2% of total breaches in the first half of 2021 to 12% in the first half of 2022.
Consolidation within the industry (multiple healthcare systems using the same electronic medical record (EMR) vendors, for example), has led to millions of exposed records as a result of attacks against third-party service providers. Electronic medical records (EMR) systems have emerged as a serious target for hackers, and increasingly breaches are occurring on third- party business associates, rather than on providers themselves.”
Surescripts Joins Civitas Networks for Health Surescripts has joined Civitas Networks for Health as a strategic business and technology partner to continue leveraging healthcare interoperability nationwide, providing better informed patient care and lower healthcare costs.
Civitas is the largest national network of its kind that includes member organizations working to use health information exchange, health data and multi-stakeholder, cross-sector approaches to improve health.
About healthcare finance
Fresenius completes $2.4B merger with digital health startup “Fresenius Health Partners, InterWell Health and Cricket Health have completed a three-way merger to create an independent $2.4 billion company…
The new company will bring together the provider and payer relationships of InterWell Health, the technology and digital platform of Cricket Health and Fresenius's value-based care arm to deliver kidney disease care, according to the press release.”