About health insurance/insurers
Medicare Advantage (MA) Competitive Enrollment Dashboard Choose your state and the map will display MA penetration data.
About pharma
Cuban's pharmacy picks up J&J brand-name drugs “After breaking into the brand-name market in March — over a year since launching its online wholesaler company — Cost Plus Drugs offers three brand-name products made by Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson business. Cost Plus Drugs sells about 1,000 generics and four brand-name drugs.
The three products are Invokana (canagliflozin), Invokamet (canagliflozin-metformin HCl) and Invokamet XR (canagliflozin-metformin HCl), according to a Cost Plus Drugs tweet.”
FDA to require mail-back envelopes for unused opioids “Drugmakers will soon have to provide patients with postage-paid envelopes to send back unused opioids for safe disposal under a new requirement announced by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as part of its Opioids Analgesic Risk Evaluation and Mitigations Strategy (REMS) program. This plan is scheduled to take effect next year.”
About healthcare quality and safety
Reports of serious adverse events rose in 2022: Joint Commission “Here are a few takeaways:
—The total number of reported sentinel events increased by 19% in 2022 compared with 2021, and by 78% compared with 2020. Most events were voluntarily self-reported to the Joint Commission by accredited or certified healthcare entities.
—Of the reported sentinel events, 20% were associated with patient death, 44% with severe temporary harm and 13% with unexpected additional treatments or procedures.
—The number of reported events involving falls rose from 173 in 2020 to 611 in 2022. Last year, 40% were due to patients walking, 23% involved patients falling out of bed and 10% happened while patients used the restroom.
—The Joint Commission cited a lack of fall-risk assessments and inadequate communication between staff during care transitions as root causes for the increased number of falls.
—In the delayed treatment category, 46% of events were related to a delay in care, 38% to a missed diagnosis, 14% to an abnormal test result not being addressed and 2% to an incorrect diagnosis.
—Among the sentinel events related to treatment delays, 66% resulted in death, 17% in severe harm and 14% in permanent harm.
—Nearly 90% of reported sentinel events in 2022 occurred in hospital settings.
—In the home care setting, 43% of reported serious adverse events involved fires related to medical equipment.
—The top sentinel event in ambulatory care settings was wrong-site surgeries at 25% of reported events.”
Comment: These reports answer “What” but not “Why.”
About health technology
FDA Clears Bot Image’s AI Software for Prostate Cancer Screening “The FDA has granted clearance to Bot Image’s ProstatID AI software for analysis of non-contrast ‘short form’ magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to screen for prostate cancer.
The AI software eliminates the use of MRI contrast dye that uses gadolinium, a known toxic metal, that can potentially build up in the brain and kidneys with possible side effects.
Eliminating the contrast dye from prostate cancer MRIs enables more frequent, low-cost scans for active surveillance, the company said.
Clinical studies showed that the ProstatID algorithm has an accuracy of 93.6 percent for detection of prostate cancer.”