About Covid-19
COVID hospitalizations accelerate for fourth straight week “A total of 10,320 patients in the U.S. were newly hospitalized with COVID-19 for the week ending August 5, according to the figures published Monday, an increase of 14.3% from the week before.
Levels remain far below the summer peak that strained hospitals at this time last year, when 42,813 admissions were reported for the week of August 6, 2022.
Hospitals across the Southeast are continuing to report the nation's highest rate of COVID-19 admissions. In the region spanning Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, 4.58 new patients were reported per 100,000 residents.”
About healthcare quality
Joint Commission acquires National Quality Forum “The Joint Commission has acquired the National Quality Forum with the goal of consolidating quality measures.
The NQF will maintain its independence in developing consensus-based measures, implementation guidance and practices that benefit stakeholders but both will build on measuring quality and rationalizing the measurement landscape, according to an Aug. 16 news release from the organization.”
About health insurance/insurers
CMS unveils new changes to ACO REACH model “Among numerous tweaks, CMS reduced the beneficiary alignment minimum for new entrant accountable care organizations from 5,000 to 4,000. It also reduced minimums for high needs populations. A 10% buffer will be applied across all ACO types, allowing an ACO to temporarily drop below the new beneficiary minimum, but an ACO cannot remain below the threshold for more than one of the model’s remaining years, according to the newly released standards.
For high needs population ACOs, the agency is expanding criteria to incorporate more beneficiaries in a bid to identify more eligible members with complex needs. Criteria include 90 Medicare-covered days of home health service utilization or 45 Medicare-covered days in a skilled nursing facility, and the minimum has decreased from 1,200 to 1,000 for 2025.”
How Payers Are Reducing Prior Authorizations, Limiting Care Disruptions A good summary of the topic.
About pharma
Appeals court upholds some restrictions on abortion pill access, but drug will remain available for now “A federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld parts of a decision limiting access to a widely used abortion pill, but the ruling will have no immediate impact on the availability of the drug, mifepristone.
In their ruling, a three-judge panel on the conservative-leaning U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Food and Drug Administration failed to adequately take into account safety concerns when it loosened access to mifepristone in 2016.
While the ruling is a victory for abortion opponents, the Justice Department is expected to appeal the decision and the Supreme Court earlier this year issued a stay while the case goes through the appeals process. That temporary pause has allowed the drug to remain widely available.”
About the public’s health
Representation of Race and Ethnicity in the Contemporary US Health Cohort All of Us Research Program “In this accruing nationwide health cohort study including 358 705 US adults, non-Hispanic Black or African American individuals were overrepresented by 8.73%.”
Patterns in Cancer Incidence Among People Younger Than 50 Years in the US, 2010 to 2019 “In this cohort study, the incidence rates of early-onset cancer increased from 2010 to 2019. Although breast cancer had the highest number of incident cases, gastrointestinal cancers had the fastest-growing incidence rates among all early-onset cancers. These data may be useful for the development of surveillance strategies and funding priorities.”
KFF Tracking Poll July 2023: Substance Use Crisis And Accessing Treatment Among the key findings:
With U.S. overdose deaths hitting a new high in 2022, a majority of adults say they have felt the impact of the substance use crisis facing the country. Two-thirds say either they or a family member have been addicted to alcohol or drugs, experienced homelessness due to addiction, or experienced a drug overdose leading to an emergency room visit, hospitalization, or death.
Three in ten U.S. adults (29%) say they or someone in their family have ever been addicted to opioids, including prescription painkillers and illegal opioids like heroin. Opioid addiction impacts substantial shares across demographic groups like income and gender but is more commonly reported among rural residents and White adults. Four in ten of those living in rural areas (42%) report they or a family member have experienced opioid addiction compared to smaller shares of those living in suburban (30%) or urban (23%) areas. In addition, a larger share of White adults (33%) compared to Black adults (23%) report personal or familial experience with opioid addiction. About three in ten (28%) Hispanic adults also report they or a family member have experienced opioid addiction.
Among those who say they or a family member experienced addiction to prescription painkillers, alcohol, or any illegal drug, less than half (46%) report they or their family member got treatment for the addiction.”
About healthcare finance