About Covid-19
CDC: Omicron Subvariant XBB.1.5 Responsible for 88% of New COVID-19 Infections “XBB.1.5 was responsible for 88% of new infections this week, according to CDC estimates. The subvariant plateaued in recent weeks and declined 1 percentage point from the previous week.
Another omicron subvariant, XBB.1.9.1, has started to show slight growth, increasing from 4% of cases last week to 5% this week as coronavirus infections and hospitalizations continue to decline in the U.S.”
Comment: According to the CDC: “the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine provides added protection against symptomatic infection with Omicron XBB/XBB.1.5-related variants in people who had previously received 2–4 doses of the monovalent COVID-19 vaccine.”
White House launching $5 billion program to speed coronavirus vaccines “‘Project Next Gen’ — the long-anticipated follow-up to ‘Operation Warp Speed,’ the Trump-era program that sped coronavirus vaccines to patients in 2020 — would take a similar approach to partnering with private sector companies to expedite development of vaccines and therapies. Scientists, public heath experts and politicians have called for the initiative, warning that existing therapies have steadily lost their effectiveness and new ones are needed.”
About health insurance/insurers
Extended Medicare Advantage VBID Model Will Address SDOH, Health Equity “CMS has extended the Medicare Advantage value-based insurance design (VBID) model for an additional five years, with plans to implement changes that address beneficiaries’ social determinants of health, improve care coordination, and advance health equity.
Within the Medicare Advantage program, plans can use the VBID model to structure cost-sharing and other benefit designs to encourage beneficiaries to seek high-value healthcare services. The model tests various Medicare Advantage service delivery and payment approaches that aim to lower costs and improve care quality for beneficiaries.
The model also includes a Hospice Benefit Component to help patients requiring end-of-life care transition to hospice care if they choose that option.”
AHIP Report: Understanding the Value and Benefit of Medicare Supplement Coverage for 14.5 Million Americans “Key takeaways from the report included:
The percentage of original Medicare enrollees purchasing Medicare Supplement coverage grew from 35% to 41% between December 2017 and December 2021.
More than half (54%) of all original Medicare enrollees without any additional coverage chose a Medicare Supplement plan in 2020.
Medicare enrollees with Medicare Supplement coverage were 3 times less likely to have problems paying medical bills compared to enrollees without Medicare Supplement policies. Only 3% of enrollees with Medicare Supplement coverage reported having difficulty paying medical bills in the last 12 months, compared to 8% of original Medicare enrollees without Medicare Supplement coverage.
A majority of Medicare Supplement (57%) are women, while 42% are 75 years old or older.”
A significant percentage of Medicare Supplement enrollees are people with lower incomes. For example, 11% have annual household incomes below $20,000, and 24% have incomes below $30,000.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Hospitals Face ‘Make-or-Break Year’ After Bleak 2022, Fitch Says “Last year is shaping up to be the worst year ever for the finances of US nonprofit hospitals — and 2023 isn’t looking much better, according to Fitch Ratings.
’2023 is going to be the make-or-break year’ for stemming financial declines, senior director Kevin Holloran said during a presentation Wednesday on the challenges facing nonprofit hospitals.
Those trials include labor costs and shortages, inflation, a higher cost of capital, investment losses and the end of billions in federal pandemic funds. While the need for expensive traveling nurses has declined, basic wages have jumped.”
About pharma
Pfizer escapes proposed class action lawsuit over patient copay assistance “Two months after taking a loss in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal, which preventsPfizer from implementing a cost-sharing assistance program for its heart disease drugs Vyndaqel and Vyndamax, the company has gotten a win in a parallel case in a different court in Washington, D.C.
In U.S. District Court, Pfizer has prevailed over five collection companies which sought to bring a potential class action lawsuit alleging that Pfizer illegally induced patients to a select group of drugs.
The five plaintiffs—including MSP Recovery Claims, Series LLC—are companies that seek to recover overpayments on behalf of private insurers that administer Medicare and Medicaid programs. The plaintiffs alleged that they were damaged by a “conspiratorial scheme to increase the unit price” of several drugs from 2012 to 2016.
Pfizer did it, the companies alleged, by donating to the Patient Access Network Foundation and Advanced Care Scripts to help cover the cost of patients’ co-pays. This in turn induced patients to use Pfizer drugs when less expensive alternatives were available, according to the complaint.”
Gavin Newsom wanted California to cut ties with Walgreens. Then federal law got in the way. “Gov. Gavin Newsom declared last month that California was “done” doing business with Walgreens after the pharmacy chain said it would not distribute an abortion pill in 21 states where Republicans threatened legal action. Since then, KHN has learned that the Democratic governor must compromise on his hard-line tweet.
California is legally bound to continue doing business with Walgreens through the state’s massive Medicaid program, health law experts said…
Newsom’s administration confirmed it will ‘continue to comply’ with federal law by paying Walgreens through Medi-Cal, which provides health coverage to roughly 15 million residents with low incomes and disabilities.”
About the public’s health
EPA seeks to restrict a toxic sterilizer, despite industry red flags “Acting in response to community health experts and environmental justice advocates, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing tougher standards on several toxic chemicals, including ethylene oxide, widely used for sterilizing medical equipment and other purposes.”
Sex Matters: Uncovering the Brain’s Role in Obesity for Men and Women “A UCLA study published in Brain Communications has identified sex-specific brain signals that influence obesity development in men and women. By combining MRI data with clinical features and personal histories, researchers found differences in several brain networks associated with early life adversity, mental health quality, and sensory stimulation experiences. The study showed that women’s obesity tends to be linked to emotion-related and compulsive eating, while men’s eating behavior is more affected by gut sensations and visceral responses. The findings may help in developing more targeted obesity interventions based on an individual’s sex and improve understanding of obesity-related drives and behaviors.”
Low vaccination rates lead to global surge in vaccine-derived polio “Key takeaways:
—There was a 694% increase in paralytic cases of type 1 circulating vaccine-derived polio from 2021 to 2022.
—The new oral vaccine for type 2 poliovirus resulted in a 46% decrease in paralytic cases from that type.
—Lower vaccination rates led to a global surge in cases of one type of vaccine-derived polio last year”
About healthcare IT
Video Telemedicine Experiences In COVID-19 Were Positive, But Physicians And Patients Prefer In-Person Care For The Future “To help inform policy discussions about postpandemic telemedicine reimbursement and regulations, we conducted dual nationally representative surveys among primary care physicians and patients. Although majorities of both populations reported satisfaction with video visits during the pandemic, 80 percent of physicians would prefer to provide only a small share of care or no care via telemedicine in the future, and only 36 percent of patients would prefer to seek care by video or phone. Most physicians (60 percent) felt that the quality of video telemedicine care was generally inferior to the quality of in-person care, and both patients and physicians cited the lack of physical exam as a key reason (90 percent and 92 percent, respectively).”
Microsoft receives court order to disrupt infrastructure from ransomware groups targeting hospitals “Software giant Microsoft received a court order from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York that will allow the company to disrupt infrastructure used by ransomware gangs during hospital attacks.
The court order allows Microsoft to cut off communication between hackers and a fake version of the cybersecurity software Cobalt Strike, used by hackers to breach hospital systems.”