About health insurance/insurers
Reported by STAT: “A new report from A.M. Best, a ratings agency for insurance companies, shows that premiums and claims have increased quite a bit for stop-loss insurance from 2014 through 2021. Stop-loss is the coverage that self-insured employers buy to protect themselves against expensive and unexpected medical claims from their workers…
Back in 2014, stop-loss insurers spent a little more than 74 cents of every $1 in premiums to cover these catastrophic claims. By 2021, that soared to 85 cents of every dollar, according to A.M. Best’s data. What gives? The main reason is there have just been more big-dollar claims. The main culprit? New, incredibly expensive drugs.
‘Cell and gene therapies have been frequently named as the top cause of catastrophic claims,’ A.M. Best analysts wrote in their report. ‘Regulators might see a need to intervene to avoid potential insolvencies given an enormous financial impact from these new drugs, especially on small and medium-sized groups.’”
Medicare Could Have Saved Up To $128 Million Over 5 Years if CMS Had Implemented Controls
To Address Duplicate Payments for Services Provided to Individuals With Medicare and Veterans Health Administration Benefits The headline explains the story.
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Post-pandemic, even hospital care goes remote “The Mayo Clinic was among the first hospitals in the country to experiment with sending acute patients home for remote care four years ago. Now, some 250 similar programs exist throughout the country.
That's largely because during the pandemic, the federal agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid relaxed normal rules requiring around-the-clock, on-site nurses for hospitals requesting the exception. This allowed at-home hospital care programs to rapidly expand. Those pandemic-era waivers will remain in place until at least the end of 2024, although some experts anticipate policy changes allowing such programs to remain in place permanently.”
About pharma
The top 10 pharma drug ad spenders for 2022 FYI. The list is by drug.
Astellas inks deal to buy Iveric Bio for $5.9 billion “Astellas on Monday announced that it entered into an agreement to acquire Iveric Bio for $40 per share in cash, or a total equity value of about $5.9 billion, in a move the Japanese drugmaker says will sharpen its focus on therapies for blindness and regeneration.”
About the public’s health
More than One in Five Adults with Limited Public Transit Access Forgo Health Care Because of Transportation Barriers “Key Findings
21 percent of U.S. adults without access to a vehicle or public transit went without needed medical care last year. Individuals who lacked access to a vehicle but reported neighborhood access to public transportation services were less likely to skip needed care (9%).
5 percent of all U.S. adults reported forgoing healthcare due to transportation barriers.
Black adults (8%), adults with low family incomes (14%), and adults with public health insurance (12%) were all more likely to forgo needed care due to difficulty finding transportation.
Adults with a disability (17%) were more than three times as likely to report skipping care due to transportation concerns.
Conclusion
Reliable access to transportation, whether it be a vehicle or neighborhood public transit, is a social driver of health in the United States.”
About healthcare IT
Comparing Physician and Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Responses to Patient Questions Posted to a Public Social Media Forum “In this cross-sectional study of 195 randomly drawn patient questions from a social media forum, a team of licensed health care professionals compared physician’s and chatbot’s responses to patient’s questions asked publicly on a public social media forum. The chatbot responses were preferred over physician responses and rated significantly higher for both quality and empathy.”
Comment: If it is easy to teach a machine empathy and it performs better than physicians, what does that say about medical education?
Video Telemedicine Experiences In COVID-19 Were Positive, But Physicians And Patients Prefer In-Person Care For The Future “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). Patients who were older, had less education, or were Asian were less likely to want to use video for future care. Although improvements to home-based diagnostic tools could improve both the quality of and the desire to use telemedicine, virtual primary care will likely be limited in the immediate future. Policies to enhance quality, sustain virtual care, and address inequities in the online setting may be needed.”
Data Breach Lawsuits Tied to Tracking Pixel Use On the Rise In Healthcare “As data breach notifications tied to the use of tracking pixels continue to surface, experts have observed a wave of lawsuits following close behind. BakerHostetler observed more than 50 lawsuits being filed against hospital systems related to third-party tracking tech since August 2022, according to the firm’s 2023 Data Security Incident Response Report (DSIR).
The DSIR was based on BakerHostetler’s analysis of the more than 1,160 incidents that its Digital Assets and Data Management Practice Group helped clients manage in 2022.”
About healthcare personnel
85% of nurses plan to leave hospital roles 1 year from now “A nursing workforce that has been shrinking dramatically may be headed toward even greater challenges. Only 15 percent of nurses working in hospital settings say they plan to stay in their current positions one year from now, according to a survey of more than 18,000 nurses conducted by AMN Healthcare, the largest healthcare staffing company in the country.
The 85 percent who said they are making other career plans reported they are seeking travel nursing opportunities, considering going back to school, looking into part-time or per diem work or departing the profession completely.
Additionally, 55 percent of nurses across the profession reported feeling like they want to quit often.”
About health technology
Medtronic’s next-gen leadless pacemakers score FDA approval “Medtronic has secured the FDA’s approval for the latest generation of its miniaturized, wireless pacemaker implants, the Micra AV2 and VR2.
According to the company, the newest models can offer up to 40% more battery life over their predecessors—boosting them out to 16 and 17 years, respectively—and making them a more attractive option for comparatively younger patients while requiring fewer replacement procedures. In fact, Medtronic estimates that the time span will cover more than 80% of the patients who receive pacemaker implants.
Compared to traditional pacemakers, the Micra is less than a tenth the size and weighs less than 2 grams, comparable to a small capsule. While past implants have been placed under the skin near the collarbone and wired into the cardiac muscle with small leads, these devices are embedded within the heart’s chambers through a minimally invasive procedure.”