Happy National Postal Workers Day!
Using the CDC’s Covid Data Tracker and Thursday as the first day of the week, here are the FEHBlog’s weekly charts of new Covid cases and deaths from the 27th week of 2021 through the 26th week of 2022:
The CDC did not produce its weekly review of Covid statistics today as it’s the beginning of the July 4th holiday weekend. The CDC’s daily averages of new cases, new deaths and new hospitalization for the past week has been 109,944 cases, 316 deaths and 4,947 hospitalizations.
Beckers Hospital Review informs us
Temporary loss of smell emerged as a common indicator of COVID-19 early in the pandemic. Research into the cause and treatment of the condition, known as anosmia, is ongoing, though recent studies have brought us one step closer to answers.
Two latest findings on COVID-19-related anosmia:
1. Loss of smell and taste is becoming less common as the virus evolves, according to researchers.
2. Smell and taste hasn’t fully returned for many people who contracted COVID-19 early in the pandemic, research shows.
In retrospect, the FEHBlog is pleased that he continued theses charts from the last six months of 2021 into the first half of 2022 because doing so captured the three important surges. Now the FEHBlog has to decide what to do next Friday as the charts present a years worth of data.
Here is the FEHBlog’s weekly chart of Covid vaccinations distributed and administered from the beginning of the Covid vaccination era (the 51st week of 2020) through this week, the 26th week of 2022.
It’s worth adding that the CDC is currenly providing weekly, not daily, vaccination stats. The CDC is now offering on a colorful, adjustable chart on “Primary Series Completion, Booster Dose Eligibility, and Booster Dose Receipt by Age, United States.
Medscape adds
COVID-19 vaccines protected against severe disease and death in people with overweight or obesity, a large English study found.
Compared with the unvaccinated, vaccinated individuals in each BMI group experienced significantly lower likelihood of COVID-related hospitalization starting at 2 weeks from their second dose, reported Carmen Piernas, PhD, of the University of Oxford, and colleagues:
* Underweight: OR 0.51 (95% CI 0.41-0.63)
* Normal weight: OR 0.34 (95% CI 0.32-0.36)
* Overweight: OR 0.32 (95% CI 0.30-0.34)
* Obesity: OR 0.32 (95% CI 0.30-0.34)
In other vaccine news, Medscape reports
A new study provides more evidence that influenza vaccination may help protect older adults against Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
In a large propensity-matched cohort of older adults, those who had received at least one influenza inoculation were 40% less likely than unvaccinated peers to develop AD over the course of 4 years.
“Influenza infection can cause serious health complications, particularly in adults 65 and older. Our study’s findings ― that vaccination against the flu virus may also reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s dementia for at least a few years ― adds to the already compelling reasons get the flu vaccine annually,” Avram Bukhbinder, MD, with McGovern Medical School at the UTHealth, Houston, Texas, told Medscape Medical News.
Sign me up.
Also from the public health front, Medscape tells us
About 80% of US adults have low to moderate cardiovascular (CV) health based on the American Heart Association (AHA) checklist for optimal heart health, which now includes healthy sleep as an essential component for heart health. With the addition of sleep, “Life’s Essential 8” replaces the AHA’s “Life’s Simple 7” checklist. * * *
The AHA Presidential Advisory — Life’s Essential 8: Updating and Enhancing the American Heart Association’s Construct on Cardiovascular Health — was published online June 29 in the journal Circulation.
A companion paper published simultaneously in Circulation reports the first study using Life’s Essential 8.
Overall, the results show that CV health of the US population is “suboptimal, and we see important differences across age and sociodemographic groups,” [Dr. Donald] Lloyd-Jones [chair of the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago] said.
Medpage offers a detailed Q&A on monkeypox. Among them
Could monkeypox be spread easily from person to person, similar to COVID-19?
“Monkeypox is certainly not COVID-19,” stressed [Capt. Agam] Rao [, MD, a medical officer at the U.S. Public Health Service at the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID)]. Based on prior outbreaks and the current outbreak, monkeypox appears to spread through “direct close contact. So, intimate contact that might happen during sex, but also any other close contact that might occur — for example, if you live with someone who has monkeypox and you are sleeping on the same bedding and using the same towels.”
“It really is not something that you will just pass on to someone walking down the street,” she said.
While agency researchers are “keeping an open mind” about the possibility that the virus could be more easily transmitted, “at this time, there’s no indication that it would spread the way that COVID spread and spread to as many people, [and] at this time, the risk for the worldwide population … is low,” she added.
From the prior authorization front, Healthcare Dive reports
Aetna is no longer requiring prior authorization for cataract surgeries, a controversial policy the payer adopted a year ago, according to a new provider notice.
Aetna is also rolling back prior authorization requirements for video EEGs and home infusion for some drugs. It’s adding two new-to-market drugs to the precertification list.
The payer said in a statement that it came to its decision after analyzing real-time data from the year the requirement was in place. “Going forward, we will focus on retrospective reviews of procedures and providers where questions of medical necessity exist,” Aetna said.
From the Rx coverage front, Fierce Pharma offers an article on how payers are planning to avoid cost shocks associated with gene therapy.
Kelley Miller, senior director of managed markets for the specialty pharmacy Optum Frontier Therapies, said there are three major considerations for his team during coverage talks. One is the clinical landscape, while another is the “human” element of what the patients and their families are going through. Thirdly, the team looks at the “economic impact” of the treatment.
Once Miller’s team has that information, the “conversations should come fast and furious,” he said.
Despite the biopharma industry’s advances in gene therapies, ICER president Steven Pearson, M.D., M.Sc., said it’s still a “fairly dicey business proposition” for companies in this field, especially outside the U.S. He pointed to bluebird bio’s decision to pull beta thalassemia gene therapy Zynteglo from the European market last year.
From the U.S. healthcare front, Beckers Hospital Review reports
IBM Watson Health, in partnership with Fortune, has released its top 15 health systems, which they find set an example for health systems and hospitals across the nation. With its data, the report will continue to stand as a resource for these groups to improve their quality of care and efficiency.
In its 14th year of publishing this study, IBM Watson Health found that the top 15 health systems had better survival rates, fewer patient complications, fewer healthcare-associated infections, better long-term outcomes, better 30-day mortality/revisitation rates and more. The study also found that patients revered the top 15 hospitals more than peer system hospitals.
For 2022, Allina Health of Minneapolis, MN, sits on top of the large health systems division. Cone Health of Greensboro, NC, sits on top of the medium health systems division. Asante of Medford Oregon sits on top of the small health system division.
From the Medicare Advantage front, Health Payer Intelligence discusses AHIP’s statement on the Medicare Advantage program which places various attacks against the MA program in perspective.
In addition to defending prior authorizations and spotlighting certain facets of OIG reporting, AHIP also offered evidence for Medicare Advantage plans’ efficacy overall.
The health plans have been proven to excel on quality measures and on overall efficiency, surpassing original Medicare’s quality level. They also have to ascribe to certain network adequacy standards.
Medicare Advantage plans produce savings for the Medicare program and offer higher value for members and taxpayers. In particular, Medicare Advantage plans offer strong value to members who are lower-income and underserved.
Lastly, AHIP pointed out that these plans have bipartisan support.
Finally federal employee benefits consultant Tammy Flanagan follows the retirement process of a federal employee in a three-part article in Govexec.