About Covid-19
Pandemic Funding Saved More Americans From Medical Debt “The number of Americans who had trouble paying their medical bills dropped precipitously between 2019 and 2021, and funds from the American Rescue Plan and other federal pandemic relief programs may have been a reason why.
Overall, 10.8% of Americans responding to a federal survey in 2021 said they had had problems covering medical bills that year, down from 14% in 2019, according to researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”
Israel says has not found a link between Pfizer COVID shot and stroke “Israel has not identified any evidence linking strokes to an updated coronavirus vaccine made by U.S. drugmaker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech SE, according to a health ministry official.
On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said that a safety monitoring system had flagged that the shot could possibly be linked to a type of brain stroke in older adults, according to preliminary data…
On Wednesday, the European Union's drug regulator also said it had found no safety signals in the region related to Pfizer's bivalent shot.”
About health insurance/insurers
Health insurers well-positioned to weather inflation, utilization shifts in 2023: Fitch “Health insurers have a neutral credit outlook for the coming year as the increased focus on diversification paid off, according to a new analysis from Fitch Ratings.
In addition, the healthcare industry's unique "structural characteristics" have insurers set to weather fluctuations in healthcare utilization, inflation and ongoing concerns about an economic recession. Payers emerged from the pandemic well positioned as decreases in routine care offset the increased expenses related to care for patients with COVID-19.
Fitch upgraded the individual ratings for Cigna, Aetna and Centene in 2022. Cigna's credit outlook improved as it focused on diversification within its Evernorth subsidiary, while Aetna's parent company, CVS Health, significantly decreased the financial leverage from its 2018 acquisition of the insurer.
Centene earned a rating increase for a similar focus on business diversification as well as geographic diversification.”
About healthcare quality/safety
Gaps in Recalls of Home-Use Medical Devices Top ECRI's Hazards List for 2023 "The 10 topics on ECRI's 2023 hazards list are listed below in rank order:
Gaps in Recalls for At-Home Medical Devices cause patient confusion and harm
Growing number of Defective Single-Use Medical Devices puts patients at risk
Inappropriate use of Automated Dispensing Cabinet Overrides can result in medication errors
Undetected Venous Needle Dislodgement or access-bloodline separation during hemodialysis can lead to death
Failure to manage Cybersecurity Risks Associated with Cloud-Based Clinical Systems can result in care disruptions
Inflatable Pressure Infusers can deliver fatal air emboli from IV solution bags
Confusion surrounding Ventilator Cleaning and Disinfection requirements can lead to cross-contamination
Common misconceptions about Electrosurgery can lead to serious burns
Overuse of Cardiac Telemetry can lead to clinician cognitive overload and missed critical events
Underreporting Device-Related Issues may risk recurrence”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Rural Emergency Hospitals From CMS, effective this month:
"REHs are a new Medicare Part A provider type. Section 125 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (CAA), Division CC defines REHs are facilities that meet these regulatory requirements (This list includes basic criteria. It isn’t all-inclusive.):
—Must enroll in Medicare
—Has a transfer agreement in effect with a Level I or Level II trauma center ● Must meet staff training and certification requirements, including:
—A staffed emergency department 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with staffing requirements like those for Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs)
—A physician (as defined in Section 1861(r)(1) of the Social Security Act (the Act)), nurse practitioner, clinical nurse specialist, or physician assistant (as those terms are defined in Section 1861(aa)(5) of the Act) available to provide rural emergency hospital services in the facility 24 hours a day
—Meet certain licensure requirements, including:
○ Located in a state that provides for licensing of such hospitals under state or local law
○ Licensed under such law
○ Approved by the state or local agency as meeting the standards for such license
—Meet Conditions of Participation (CoPs) applicable to CAHs regarding emergency services and hospital emergency departments
—Don’t exceed an annual per patient average of 24 hours of services
—Don’t provide any acute care inpatient hospital services (other than post-hospital extended care services provided in a distinct part unit licensed as a skilled nursing facility (SNF))
—Was a CAH or small rural hospital with no more than 50 beds on December 27, 2020 (the date of enactment of the CAA)”
About the public’s health
Building the CDC the Country Needs Final Report of the Center for Strategic & International Studies Commission Working Group on the CDC. Read pages 10-21.
Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report Highlights from the CDC report:
“CDC estimates that, so far this season, there have been at least 24 million illnesses, 260,000 hospitalizations, and 16,000 deaths from flu.
The cumulative hospitalization rate in the FluSurv-NET system was 1.8 times higher than the highest cumulative in-season hospitalization rate observed for week 1 during previous seasons going back to 2010-2011. However, this in-season rate is still lower than end-of-season hospitalization rates for all but 4 pre-COVID-19-pandemic seasons going back to 2010-2011.
The number of flu hospital admissions reported in the HHS Protect system decreased compared to week 52.
The majority of influenza viruses tested are in the same genetic subclade as and antigenically similar to the influenza viruses included in this season’s influenza vaccine.”
About healthcare IT
Websites Selling Abortion Pills Are Sharing Sensitive Data With Google “Online pharmacies that sell abortion pills are sharing sensitive data with Google and other third parties, which may allow law enforcement to prosecute those who use the medications to end their pregnancies, a ProPublica analysis has found.
Using a tool created by the Markup, a nonprofit tech-journalism newsroom, ProPublica ran checks on 11 online pharmacies that sell abortion medication to reveal the web tracking technology they use. Late last year and in early January, ProPublica found web trackers on the sites of at least nine online pharmacies that provide pills by mail: Abortion Ease, BestAbortionPill.com, PrivacyPillRX, PillsOnlineRX, Secure Abortion Pills, AbortionRx, Generic Abortion Pills, Abortion Privacy and Online Abortion Pill Rx.”
About healthcare personnel
Meet America's largest employer of physicians: UnitedHealth Group “With at least 60,000 employed or aligned physicians across 2,000 locations in 2023, Optum has cemented itself at the forefront of the quickly changing healthcare delivery landscape. For comparison, Bloomberg reported in 2021 that Ascension employs or is affiliated with 49,000 physicians, HCA has 47,000 and Kaiser has 24,000.”
The primary care battle: Where Optum, CVS, Walgreens stand A good summary of the topic.
About healthcare finance
Large healthcare bankruptcies rose 84% in 2022, though hospitals mostly dodged the bullet “Major healthcare bankruptcies jumped by 84% from 2021 to 2022, returning the sector to a pre-pandemic rate of new Chapter 11 filings, according to new research from Gibbins Advisors.
The healthcare restructuring advisory firm said it found a total of 46 bankruptcies among organizations with more than $10 million in liabilities during 2022. The increase was largely driven by activity in the final months of the year, with a nearly threefold uptick in new filings when comparing the fourth quarter and the first quarter.
For comparison, there were 51 such bankruptcy filings in 2019, 45 in 2020 and just 25 in 2021, according to the report (PDF).
Senior care facilities and pharmaceutical companies bore the brunt of the damage in 2022, with the former subsector bearing 12 bankruptcy filings and the latter 14.”