About health insurance/insurers
Judge invalidates parts of the ACA that mandate health coverage of many preventive services and drugs He’s at it again: “Judge Reed O’Connor also said the ACA’s requirement that health plans cover HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, at no cost violates religious freedom law.
The decision, released Wednesday, is a temporary win for the plaintiffs, which include Steven Hotze, a physician and conservative activist who has campaigned against the ACA and previously called same-sex marriage a ‘wicked, evil movement.’ The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately say if it would appeal the decision, although an appeal is considered likely.”
Where Does Your Health Care Dollar Go A nice summary with graphics from AHIP.
MedPAC explores standardized plan options in Medicare Advantage “The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), which advises Congress on Medicare issues, is researching how standardized benefit options would work for MA. The goal is to include the findings in an annual report to Congress next year and explore how standardization could help simplify choice for seniors.”
Comment: This idea is a good one. It would make plan selection easier and would mimic the Medicare Supplement market.
Walmart And UnitedHealth Group Launch Medicare Advantage Partnership “Walmart and UnitedHealth Group are rolling out a major partnership to provide healthcare services and “improve the patient experience” for Medicare Advantage enrollees in certain markets across the country.
The 10-year collaboration announced Wednesday between the retail giant’s fast-growing Walmart Health business and UnitedHealth’s Optum health services will begin in 2023 in Florida and Georgia where Walmart Health has a combined 15 locations. Eventually, the collaboration will be expanded across the U.S., serving Medicare Advantage health plan enrollees no matter which health plan seniors choose.”
New Survey Highlights What Americans Are Willing to Pay More for in Healthcare “Respondents were asked: "When you seek out healthcare, are you willing to pay more or less for any of the following factors?" The survey of more than 2000 Americans ranked factors that impact their healthcare provider choice with regards to costs, with quality of care being the top influencing factor:
Quality of care (57%)
Ability to work with care team of choice (47%)
Ability to work with hospitals of choice (41%)
Location proximity or convenience (41%)
Ability to get an appointment quickly (40%)”
NOTE: The referenced websites are proprietary. The article does not say how much people are willing to pay for those features.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
FTC Investigating Amazon Deal to Buy One Medical Network of Health Clinics “The Federal Trade Commission is investigating Amazon.com Inc.’s $3.9 billion deal to buy 1Life Healthcare Inc., which operates One Medical primary care clinics in 25 U.S. markets.
1Life, which went public in 2020, disclosed the investigation in a securities filing. The disclosure says One Medical and Amazon each received a request on Friday for additional information about the deal from the FTC.”
About pharma
Bayer to pay $40m to resolve claims over alleged kickbacks and false statements “The Justice Department said Laurie Simpson, a former Bayer employee who worked in its marketing department, filed two lawsuits against the company.
In one, Simpson alleged Bayer paid kickbacks to hospitals and physicians to induce them to prescribe the drugs Trasylol and Avelox, marketed these drugs for off-label uses that were not "reasonable and necessary" and downplayed the safety risks of Trasylol.
The lawsuit alleged Bayer's actions caused the submission of false Medicare and Medicaid claims and violated the laws of 20 states and the District of Columbia.
The second lawsuit filed by Simpson alleged the company knowingly downplayed the drug Baycol’s risks of causing rhabdomyolysis and misrepresented its efficacy compared to other drugs of its kind.
Bayer subsequently withdrew Trasylol and Baycol from the market for safety reasons.”
About the public’s health
US states with the highest smoking rates in 2022 “Researchers found that, at 23.8%, West Virginia had the highest smoking rate and the highest number of smoking-related deaths, at 241 per 100,000 people.
On the other end of the spectrum, Utah had the lowest smoking rates of any U.S. state, with 7.9% of the population maintaining the habit. It also had the fewest smoking-related deaths, at 39 per 100,000 people.”
Trends in Parents’ Confidence in Childhood Vaccines During the COVID-19 Pandemic “From April 2020 to March 2022, the percentage of parents who agreed with the ‘important benefits’ and ‘useful and effective’ statements remained stable and high, ranging from 89.5 to 92.5% and from 89.3 to 93.2%, respectively... By contrast, the percentage of parents who agreed with the illness or death and harmful side effects statements increased significantly by 13.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 9.4% to 16.9%) and 6.1% (95% CI: 2.2% to 9.9%), respectively…. Statistically significant increases were observed for most parent subgroups (with overlapping CIs noted, suggesting no statistically significant differences between subgroups).”
Racial Differences in Detection of Fever Using Temporal vs Oral Temperature Measurements in Hospitalized Patients “In this multicenter study, temporal compared with oral temperature measurement was associated with a lower odds of identifying fever in Black patients, while there was no significant difference in White patients.”
This data joins problems with accuracy of pulse oximetry in black patients. The implications of those findings could significantly affect the “wearable technology” sector.
The Forgotten Middle: Housing & Care Options for Middle-Income Seniors in 2033 “Summary of Findings [emphases in the original]:
Over the next decade, the number of middle-income seniors will almost double—reaching 16M adults ages 75+ by 2033.
• This group will be more racially and ethnically diverse, including 22% who are people of color.
Many seniors will have health needs, like mobility limitations and cognitive impairments, that make it hard to live independently.
• Middle-income seniors may be more reliant on paid caregiving since a majority of them will be unmarried in 2033, and many do not have children living nearby.
Without selling their homes, three-quarters of middle-income seniors (11.5M) have insufficient resources to pay for private assisted living.
Many seniors are reluctant to sell their homes either because their spouse still lives there or because it is a “nest egg” to protect against unforeseen expenses or pass to their children.
Even with home equity, 6M (39%) middle-income seniors cannot pay for assisted living.
The research does not offer solutions to these problems.
About healthcare IT
eClinicalWorks moves EHR to Microsoft cloud in $100M deal “eClinicalWorks is moving its EHR to Microsoft Azure and plans to invest $100 million in the tech giant.
The EHR vendor was looking for a cloud solution that was ‘scalable, secure and HIPAA-compliant’ to help reach its goals of digitizing its EHR, more quickly deploying new applications and improving customer satisfaction, said Bharat Satyanarayan, vice president of technology and quality assurance for eClinicalWorks…”
About healthcare personnel
Travel nurses' gold rush is over. Now, some are joining other nurses in leaving the profession altogether “During the Covid pandemic, nurses tripled their pay by moving from job to job. But the short-lived boom was a temporary fix for a long-term decline in the nursing profession.”
A really good piece about the recent history of this travel nurses.
About health technology
EU blocks merger of US firms in cancer screening sector “The European Union’s anti-trust watchdog announced on Tuesday that it is blocking the buyout of cancer-screening company GRAIL by biotech giant Illumina in a rare move by European regulators against two U.S. companies.
Illumina is a major supplier of next-generation sequencing (NGS) systems for genetic and genomic analysis, while GRAIL is a health company developing blood tests to try to catch cancer early. Illumina announced an $8 billion acquisition of GRAIL in 2020.”
The US recently cleared the deal.