About health insurance/insurers
States confront medical debt that’s bankrupting millions An “estimated 100 million Americans… have amassed nearly $200 billion in collective medical debt — almost the size of Greece’s economy — according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.”
States are considering a number of measures to help, including mandating low interest rates for medical debt and furnishing aid from public funds.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Pre-merger Advocate Aurora Health logs $751M net loss across 2022 “Advocate Aurora Health tied off its final pre-merger [with Atrium] fiscal year with a $23.9 million operating loss and a $750.8 million net loss, according to an audited financial report released this week by the nonprofit system.
The performance is a step back from the $593.6 million operating income and more than $1.8 billion net income the organization had claimed back in 2021.
Like many other large systems, the 2022 downturn comes from a jump in labor expenses and striking investment losses.”
About pharma
DCI’s Top 15 Specialty Pharmacies of 2022: Five Key Trends About Today’s Marketplace See the Figure and the trends with explanations below. Particularly noteworthy is: “Hospitals and health systems are among the fastest-growing participants in the specialty pharmacy market. They now account for almost one-quarter of total accredited specialty pharmacies. This category has expanded quickly, as hospitals and health systems have opened internal pharmacies.”
Express Scripts® Further Advances Transparency and Affordability for Consumers and Clients “Express Scripts is introducing a new and innovative solution, the Copay Assurance plan, which caps consumer out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs under a client's prescription drug benefit. This means customers enrolled in the program will pay no more than $5 for generics and specialty generics, $25 for preferred brand drugs, and $45 for preferred specialty brand drugs every time they fill a prescription. The program will immediately guarantee these lower out-of-pocket rates – customers will not have to wait to meet any deductible levels.”
ICER says pending sickle-cell gene therapies cost-effective up to $1.9 million “The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) on Wednesday released a draft evidence report indicating that two experimental gene therapies for sickle-cell disease (SCD) – exagamglogene autotemcel (exa-cel) and lovotibeglogene autotemcel (lovo-cel) – would be cost-effective if priced up to $1.9 million. An FDA filing for exa-cel, a CRISPR/Cas9 gene-edited therapy, was recently completed by partners Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, while bluebird bio, which developed the lentiviral vector gene therapy lovo-cel, indicated late last month that it may be able to file its proposed treatment in a few weeks.”
About the public’s health
Breaking news:Florida legislature passes ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy “The Florida legislature voted Thursday to pass a Republican bill that would ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, cutting off what has become a critical access point for abortion care in the South since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The vote was 70 to 40.
The state Senate approved the measure earlier this month. The bill now heads to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has signaled that he will sign it.”
Insulin thermostability in a real-world setting This article has huge implications for public health. The traditional teaching has been that insulin must be refrigerated and can only stay at room temperature for short amounts of time.
“This study of insulin thermostability outside refrigeration, during the summer in India, showed that acceptable insulin concentrations were maintained up to 2 months for all samples of all insulin preparations. At 4 months, all samples from three analogue insulin preparations and three of four samples for each of the human insulins also maintained a relative concentration of 95% or more.”
See the Figure.
U.S. to ask Supreme Court to restore full access to abortion pill “A federal appeals court late Wednesday partially blocked a decision by a judge in Texas to suspend U.S. government approval of a key abortion medication but set significant restrictions on the pill that could limit access nationwide.
The court’s order maintains mifepristone’s availability for now, although it temporarily prevents the drug from being sent to patients by mail andlimits its approved use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy.
|The Biden administration said Thursday it would immediately ask the Supreme Court to intervene.”
Suicide rises to 11th leading cause of death in the US in 2021, reversing two years of decline “The suicide rate in the United States returned to a near-record high in 2021, reversing two years of decline, according to a report released Thursday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Final data for the year shows that suicide was the 11th leading cause of death nationwide, with more than 14 deaths for every 100,000 people. The death rate has increased 32% over the past two decades, and the 4% jump between 2020 and 2021 was the sharpest annual increase in that timeframe.”
Disparities in Mortality Trends for Infants of Teenagers: 1996 to 2019 “From 1996 to 2019, the mortality rate for infants of teens declined 16.7%, from 10.30 deaths per 1000 live births to 8.58. The decline was significant across racial and ethnic and urbanization subgroups; however, within rural counties, mortality rates did not change significantly for infants of Black or Hispanic teens. Changes in ASMRs [age-standardized mortality rates] accounted for 93.3% of the difference between 1996 and 2019 infant mortality rates, whereas changes in the maternal age distribution accounted for 6.7%.”
Women of Childbearing Age More Doubtful About Safety of Flu, Covid-19 Vaccines During Pregnancy “Although a majority (53%) of women of childbearing age know that the seasonal flu vaccine ‘is safe for pregnant women,’ 17% of women of childbearing age incorrectly think that is false. Doubts that the vaccine is safe for pregnant women are held by a much larger percentage of women of childbearing age (17%) than women 50 years old and older (4%) or adult men (9%).
This trend is even more pronounced with the Covid-19 vaccine. As seen in a prior wave of the survey, in August 2022, just over 4 in 10 women (42%) of childbearing age know that Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy is safe and effective. But nearly a third (31%) of women of childbearing age incorrectly think it is false to say that Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy is safe and effective. Many more women of childbearing age doubt the safety and effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy (31%) than older women (15%) or adult men (19%).”
About healthcare IT
Digital Health Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Technology (Healthcare Analytics, mHealth, Tele-healthcare, Digital Health Systems), By Component (Software, Hardware, Services), By Region, And Segment Forecasts, 2023 - 2030 “The global digital health market size was valued at USD 211.0 billion in 2022 and is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.6% from 2023 to 2030. Increasing penetration of smartphones, improved internet connectivity with the introduction of 4G/5G, advancement in healthcare IT infrastructure, rising need to curb healthcare costs, rising prevalence of chronic diseases, and the increase in accessibility of virtual care are some of the major factors to fuel the market growth. Furthermore, key players focus on introducing advanced applications to improve user experience.”
The revenue forecast for 2030 is $809.2 billion.
How Primary Care Physicians Experience Telehealth: An International Comparison “Highlights
The majority of primary care physicians in all surveyed countries reported seeing some patients in a typical week through telehealth.
In most countries, including the United States, the majority of primary care physicians who used telehealth reported implementing their telehealth platform was ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ easy.
In at least half the countries, including the U.S., the majority of primary care physicians reported telehealth improved timeliness of care, offset potential financial losses from COVID-19, and allowed their practice to assess mental and behavioral health needs to at least some extent.
In the U.S., a large majority of primary care physicians who used telehealth reported being ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ satisfied with practicing telehealth.”
See the charts for quick country comparisons.
Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare: Empowering healthcare to deliver meaningful outcomes Microsoft will be expanding its cloud offerings not only for its own healthcare use, but with hospital clients as well. Among these offerings is AI.
About healthcare personnel
Biotechs see 'staggering' 87% rise in layoffs during Q1, on pace to overtake 2022 “In the first quarter of 2023, 56 biopharmas laid off staff—an 87% jump compared to 2022, when 30 companies reported layoffs for the same period…
The layoffs to date equal almost half of all workforce reductions that occurred throughout 2022, with 56 companies taking this route in the first quarter compared to 119 recorded for all of last year, according to data from Fierce Biotech’s Layoff Trackers for 2022 and 2023.”
About health technology
Genetic profile of lung cancer can predict disease’s next move “A comprehensive analysis by British researchers of the way lung cancer evolves over time gives medical scientists a new means of predicting how individual patients’ tumours will develop and deciding how best to treat them. Cancer Research UK released the results on Wednesday of a £14mn study called TracerX involving 800 patients over a nine-year period. Lung cancer is the world’s most deadly cancer, killing about 35,000 people a year in the UK. In seven papers published in the journals Nature and Nature Medicine, the researchers described how tracking mutations in the DNA of cancer cells enabled them to anticipate the cells’ future behaviour.”