About healthcare quality
483 hospitals with 5 stars from CMS “CMS updated its Overall Hospital Quality Star Ratings for 2023, awarding 483 U.S. hospitals with a rating of five stars. This year, 54 more hospitals were given 5 stars than in 2022.”
The article has a list by state.
About health insurance/insurers/costs
US healthcare spending to grow 10% annually through 2028, report says “U.S. consumer out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures are expected to grow 10 percent annually through 2028, according to a report from market research firm Kalorama Information.
By the end of 2023, out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures will reach $519 billion, a jump of 9 percent from 2022. The COVID-19 pandemic caused a pullback in out-of-pocket healthcare expenses, but the report sees that trend ending in 2022, according to a July 25 Kalorama Information news release.
The report cited inflation, government, regulatory and payer actions, as well as business and macroeconomic trends as reasons for the continued growth in expenses.”
Rural Americans Struggle with Medical Bills and Health Care Affordability “…geographic disparities are especially stark in the United States, where about 15 percent of the population, or roughly 46 million people, live in rural areas. Recent research, based on the Commonwealth Fund’s 2020 International Health Policy Survey, found that the U.S. had more geography-based health disparities than did 10 other high-income countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.”
About hospitals and healthcare systems
Nuvance Health downgraded as system faces 'pivotal' quarters ahead “Danbury, Conn.-based Nuvance Health was downgraded to a "Baa3" rating amid weakened operating performance and reduced liquidity, Moody's said in a July 20 report.
While the seven-hospital system, which serves Eastern New York as well as Western Connecticut, has a strong market position and its management is implementing cost-cutting and strategic growth initiatives, it will face a number of cash flow issues going forward and the outlook is negative, Moody's said.”
Hospital days cash on hand dips 17% “Liquidity remains a challenge for hospitals and health systems, as many continue to see revenue outpaced by spending, according to a July 25 Fitch report.
The average days cash on hand declined by 44 days last year to 216 days on average, down 17 percent year over year. Days cash on hand for nonprofit hospitals and health systems overall peaked in 2021 at 260 days. Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, nonprofit hospitals and health systems had an average of 219 days cash on hand.”
Universal Health Services revises guidance after Q2's $171.3M profit, higher volumes “King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based Universal Health Services (UHS) reported a $171.3 million net gain ($2.42 per diluted share) for the second quarter of 2023, up slightly from the $164.1 million it had logged this time in 2022.
The for-profit acute and behavioral health hospital operator said Tuesday after market close that its second-quarter net revenues rose 6.8% year over year to nearly $3.55 billion. Operating expenses rose 5.8% year over year to $3.27 billion for the quarter.”
About pharma
New Model Essential List published today reaches a record number of medicines listed From WHO. Notable exclusions: “A total of 32 applications were not recommended including: glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists for weight loss in obesity, risdiplam for treatment of spinal muscular atrophy, donepezil for treatment of dementia due to Alzheimer disease, CAR-T cell therapies for lymphoma and fast-acting oral transmucosal fentanyl for breakthrough cancer pain.”
Cleveland sues CVS, Eli Lilly and Evernorth over insulin prices “In a 155-page lawsuit, Cleveland leaders accused numerous retail pharmacies, drugmakers and pharmacy benefit managers of hiking insulin prices that they said cost the city millions of dollars, according to court documents.
The defendants are drugmakers Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi-Aventis; PBM Evernorth Health; Express Scripts and its subsidiaries Medco Health Solutions and Esi Mail Pharmacy Services; CVS Health and CVS Caremark; and UnitedHealth Group and its businesses Optum, OptumRx and OptumInsight.”
About the public’s health
Good or bad? Plant-based and cow’s milk are not always nutritionally equal, study says Not all “plant milk options are fortified to meet the levels of various nutritional ingredients contained in dairy, according to a new unpublished study presented Monday in Boston at Nutrition 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition.
The study analyzed nutrition labels and ingredients for 233 plant-based milk products from 23 different manufacturers and found only 28 of the beverages had as much or more protein, vitamin D and calcium as cow’s milk.”
About healthcare IT
Teladoc reports higher Q2 revenue, bullish on opportunities for virtual weight management, mental health “Teladoc's second-quarter revenue jumped 10% to $652 million, boosted by strong growth in its BetterHelp direct-to-consumer mental health segment.
The telehealth giant, which has been in operation for 20 years, also narrowed its losses this past quarter to a net loss of $65 million, or a loss of 40 cents per share, compared to a loss of $3 billion for the second quarter of 2022. Both results beat Wall Street estimates.”
AMA, AHIP, NAACOS Release Playbook on Data Sharing Best Practices for Value-Based Care “A new playbook released by the American Medical Association (AMA), AHIP, and the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) highlights best practices around data sharing for organizations participating in value-based care models…
Overall, the organizations identified 5 voluntary best practices for data sharing.
1. Create an interoperable data ecosystem. The systems have to speak the same language and be able to interface in order to be successful in value-based care models... In addition, there need to be content standards, which ensure everyone is using standardized data elements and data sets, as well as exchange standards to get the information from one place to another.
2. Share more complete data.
3. Improve data collection and use it to advance health equity.
4. Share timely and actionable data.
5. Share methodologies, calculations, and context. Successful partnerships in value-based care arrangements are based on trust, which require transparency. Part of this includes having benchmarks that are established ahead of the performance period, performance data that are shared regularly, and feedback loops to address issues…”
About healthcare personnel
Physician Turnover in the United States “The annual rate of turnover increased from 5.3% to 7.2% between 2010 and 2014, was stable through 2017, and increased modestly in 2018 to 7.6%. Most of the increase from 2010 to 2014 came from physicians who stopped practicing increasing from 1.6% to 3.1%; physicians moving increased modestly from 3.7% to 4.2%. Modest but statistically significant (P < 0.001) differences existed across rurality, physician sex, specialty, and patient characteristics. In the second and third quarters of 2020, quarterly turnover was slightly lower than in the corresponding quarters of 2019.”
Doctors who put lives at risk with covid misinformation rarely punished “Across the country, doctors who jeopardized patients’ lives by pushing medical misinformation during the pandemic and its aftermath have faced few repercussions, according to a Washington Post analysis of disciplinary records from medical boards in all 50 states.”