About health insurance/insurers
Higher patient volume, insurance enrollment helps hike Highmark Health's revenue to $6.7B in Q1 “Despite having to weather inflation, staffing shortages and interruptions in its supply chain, Highmark Health’s revenue grew 4.6% in the first quarter of 2023 to $6.7 billion, mostly because of a 2.5% increase in health insurance enrollment and higher patient volume at its Allegheny Health Network arm.
The Pittsburgh-based payer-provider organization also saw an operating gain of $136 million and net income of $227 million year over year, according to its first-quarter earnings report. The company maintained $11 billion in cash and investments and net assets of more than $9 billion.”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
6 health systems making gains, 6 reporting operating losses FYI
Missouri nonprofit health systems BJC HealthCare, Saint Luke's targeting $10B merger “BJC HealthCare of St. Louis and Saint Luke’s Health System of Kansas City are exploring a merger that would yield a 28-hospital, $10 billion, integrated, academic health system, the nonprofits announced Wednesday.
The two have signed a nonbinding letter of intent and ‘are working toward reaching a definitive agreement in the coming months’ with a targeted close before the end of the year, they said. The cross-market deal would be subject to regulatory review and other customary closing conditions.”
Where CVS, Walmart, Kaiser, Target rank in market share for retail clinics FYI
For a comprehensive analysis of this sector, see: Retailers in healthcare: A catalyst for provider evolution
About pharma
Medicare to expand coverage for a new class of costly Alzheimer’s drugs “Medicare officials announced plans Thursday to broadly cover a new class of Alzheimer’s drugs following an intense lobbying campaign by patient advocates and drugmakers pressing for access to the first medications shown to slow cognitive decline from the disease…
The new policy marks a sharp change from an earlier one, which required patients to be in clinical trials for coverage. The plan would provide coverage to patients whose doctors take part in registries that provide information on how the drugs work.”
US FDA approves Pfizer's RSV vaccine “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved Pfizer Inc's respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for older adults, making it the second shot against the common respiratory disease that can be fatal for seniors.
The approval comes less than a month after the FDA approved a similar shot by rival GSK Plc. Pfizer's vaccine was approved for people aged 60 and older, the company said, the same age group as GSK's shot.”
U.S. Supreme Court gives boost to whistleblowers in drug pricing case “The justices in a 9-0 decision threw out a lower court's ruling that said the pharmacies could not be held responsible for fraud in whistleblower cases pursued against Safeway Inc, owned by Albertsons Companies Inc, and SuperValu Inc, part of United Natural Foods Inc.
At issue was whether companies can avoid liability for fraud by showing that an ‘objectively reasonable’ reading of the law supported their conduct - regardless of whether they truly believed that interpretation at the time of their alleged wrongdoing.”
Distributional Cost-Effectiveness of Equity-Enhancing Gene Therapy in Sickle Cell Disease in the United States “Gene therapy is a potential cure for sickle cell disease (SCD). Conventional cost-effectiveness analysis (CEA) does not capture the effects of treatments on disparities in SCD, but distributional CEA (DCEA) uses equity weights to incorporate these considerations…
To compare gene therapy versus standard of care (SOC) in patients with SCD by using conventional CEA and DCEA.cost-effectiveness analysis…
Gene therapy versus SOC for females yielded 25.5 versus 15.7 (males: 24.4 vs. 15.5) discounted lifetime QALYs at costs of $2.8 million and $1.0 million (males: $2.8 million and $1.2 million), respectively, with an ICER of $176 000 per QALY (full SCD population)…
Gene therapy is cost-ineffective per conventional CEA standards but can be an equitable therapeutic strategy for persons living with SCD in the United States per DCEA standards.”
About the public’s health
Biden plans to pick physician Mandy Cohen to lead CDC “President Biden plans to select former North Carolina health secretary Mandy Cohen to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to three people with direct knowledge of the pending announcement.”
US births in 2022 didn’t return to pre-pandemic levels “U.S. births were flat last year, as the nation saw fewer babies born than it did before the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.
Births to moms 35 and older continued to rise, with the highest rates in that age group since the 1960s. But those gains were offset by record-low birth rates to moms in their teens and early 20s, the CDC found. Its report is based on a review of more than 99% of birth certificates issued last year.
A little under 3.7 million babies were born in the U.S. last year, about 3,000 fewer than the year before.”
AMA and others launch collective call for health equity in Rise to Health “On Tuesday, the American Medical Association, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and Race Forward officially launched Rise to Health, a call to action for providers, payers, pharma and professional societies to make health equity a priority…
Rise to Health: A National Coalition for Equity in Health Care has been in the works for about two years. Its ten founders include the AMA, American Hospital Association and AHIP.”
Cash-transfer programmes reduce mortality in low- and middle-income countries “Cash-transfer programmes have emerged as central components of poverty-reduction strategies in many countries, and became even more common during the COVID-19 pandemic. An analysis of 37 low- and middle-income countries finds that these programmes led to marked reductions in population-level mortality in adult women and young children.”
About healthcare IT
Walmart investors vote down bid to study consumers' data privacy and reproductive rights “Walmart investors voted Wednesday to reject a push from some company shareholders to conduct an independent study on consumers' data privacy and reproductive rights.
The proposal requested that the company investigate known and potential risks associated with filling information requests from law enforcement and other agencies that could criminalize patients seeking abortions. It received 5.2% of shares that were voted, according to a release from the company, a required a majority of total voting shares to be affirmative to pass.”
About healthcare personnel
Healthcare sector job cuts up 81% from 1st 5 months of 2022 “Healthcare/products, which includes hospitals and medical products manufacturers, announced the fourth-most job cuts among 30 industries and sectors measured in the first five months of 2023, according to one new analysis.
The finding comes from a June 1 report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an executive coaching firm that examines job cuts by U.S.-based employers.
Healthcare/products announced 33,085 job cuts in the first five months of 2023, up 81 percent from the 18,301 announced in the sector in the same period of 2022. In May alone, healthcare/products announced 3,951 job cuts, compared to 6,184 in the previous month.”