Modern Healthcare reports that
HHS Secretary Alex Azar on Wednesday redoubled his support for a rule to eliminate the safe harbor protections for Medicare Part D and Medicaid managed-care drug rebates.
Hospital and insurer groups complained in comments on the rule, which replaces the safe harbor for rebates with one for discounts delivered at the point of sale, that it doesn’t give drug companies an incentive to lower prices. Another concern was that the Jan. 1, 2020 implementation date is far too soon. But Azar said getting rid of rebates one way or another is a linchpin to the Trump administration’s blueprint for lowering drug prices.
The Washington Post offers a lengthy report on the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle the Office of Personnel Management. The article notes that “An executive order directing parts of the transition by the fall is in the final stages of review, administration officials said, with an announcement by President Trump likely by summer. OPM employees were briefed at a meeting in March.”
Acting OPM Director Margaret Weichert discussed this Administration’s initiative at the OPM FEHB carrier conference at the end of last month. According to the FEHBlog’s notes, of that event Ms. Weichert explained that
The Mission of OPM continues. The Administration is committed to merit system principles, diversity and inclusion, and world class benefits. OPM’s structure needs to change. The current structure is not up to the task. We are in a period of restructuring that is required to modernize OPM’s programs so that they are sustainable for the 21st Century. Folks driving the change are business oriented. It’s not about cost cutting. It’s about creating a better structure for the achieving the mission.
Healthcare Dive informs us that Walgreens is stepping up the pharmacy clinic business by “partnering with provider group VillageMD to operate primary care clinics next to five of the pharmacy chain’s stores in the Houston area.”
VillageMD’s patent-pending data integration docOS system, released in April of last year, is a key part of the collaboration’s benefits for Walgreens, according to the company. The tech, meant to help doctors and patients manage chronic care conditions, identifies and flags gaps in health or missed diagnoses and can be accessed via phone, kiosk, home-based monitoring or telemedicine.
VillageMD has more than 120 primary care physicians in its Houston medical group. If Walgreens wants to explore a deepening of the partnership and scale Village Medical at its stores further, VillageMD already contracts or employs more than 2,500 physicians in eight markets across the U.S.
Who knew?