From the public health front

The Wall Street Journal reports

• Americans seeking messenger RNA vaccines for Covid-19 for the first time will get one, updated shot targeting both the Omicron variant and the original strain of the virus under new moves rolled out Tuesday by federal health officials. 
• The Food and Drug Administration also authorized a second booster of the updated shots for people at high risk of Covid-19, specifically people 65 years and older or people who have weak immune systems.
• The agency’s actions mark the latest tweaks to Covid-19 vaccines, and could be followed up by further efforts to simplify the complicated vaccination regimen, perhaps by enshrining plans for a once-a-year shot for most people.
• “The agency believes that this approach will help encourage future vaccination,” said Dr. Peter Marks, head of the FDA’s division that oversees vaccines. “Covid-19 continues to be a very real risk for many people, and we encourage individuals to consider staying current with vaccination.”

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force maintained its I or incomplete grade for “visual skin examination by a clinician to screen for skin cancer in adolescents and adults.” In other words, USPSTF concluded that the current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of this screening examination.

The Department of Health and Human Services made available a readout from the Secretary’s roundtable on Black maternal health.

• One critical action the Administration has taken to move the needle was implementing the state option to extend Medicaid’s postpartum coverage from two months to twelve months, a lifesaving opportunity made possible by President Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) and made permanent by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (CAA, 2023), which President Biden signed into law earlier this year. So far, 31 states and DC have signed on. Congresswoman Robin Kelly – who also sponsors the MOMMA’s Act, which aims to prevent maternal mortality – helped champion this extension. 
• Participants who lead community organizations helped shine a light on what effective, scalable solutions can look like, and the outcomes speak for themselves.
• Jennie Joseph shared that by removing barriers to care for women at higher risk for maternal mortality and morbidity, her organization has never had a mother or baby die in 25 years, and of the 1,200 patients served since 2020, only five babies were born premature.
• Aza Nedhari remarked that her organization’s Home Visitation Program, which provides expectant and new parents with culturally congruent comprehensive home visiting services during pregnancy and postpartum, has supported over 2,000 families and has facilitated a zero percent mortality rate since 2015.

From the obesity treatment front

Healthcare Dive tells us.

• Telehealth giant Teladoc Health is expanding its physician-based care product for employers to weight management and prediabetes, as interest explodes in drugs meant for diabetes control that are being more frequently prescribed for weight loss, resulting in nationwide shortages.
• The medications, called GLP-1 drugs, include Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic, which has been at the center of a national conversation about health, weight loss and medication access as more people, especially celebrities, use the drug to lose weight.
• The provider-based program, which includes access to a Teladoc-employed doctor for a personalized care plan, along with daily coaching with digital tools, will become available for diabetes prevention and weight management in the third quarter, the company told Healthcare Dive.

Beckers Payer Issues adds.

• UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty told investors [last week] it is “good news” that there are innovations being made in weight management. 
• “We need to get focused on the facts and reality of this marketplace. We need to really be clear about which patients really do benefit from these medicines and make sure we properly understand how they’re going to use those medicines,” Mr. Witty said. “So there’s a lot still to learn, I think, as these things progress through their final phases.”

From the interoperability front

• HIMSS reports on its sessions held today.

• The American Hospital Association relates.
  • About 84% of hospitals had posted a machine-readable file containing rate information by the end of first-quarter 2023, up from 65% the previous quarter, according to a report released today by Turquoise Health. The report also found that 183 commercial health insurers representing over 95% of U.S. commercially insured lives were publishing machine-readable files of their in-network negotiated rates and out-of-network allowed amounts, up from 68 in July 2022.

From the U.S. healthcare business front

• The Wall Street Journal reports
  • Hospitals are joining the gig economy. 
  • Some of the nation’s largest hospital systems including Providence and Advocate Health are using apps similar to ride-hailing technology to attract scarce nurses. An app from ShiftKey lets workers bid for shifts. Another, CareRev, helps hospitals adjust pay to match supply, lowering rates for popular shifts and raising them to entice nurses to work overnight or holidays.
  • The embrace of gig work puts hospitals in more direct competition with the temporary-staffing agencies that siphoned away nurses during the pandemic. The apps help extend hospitals’ labor pool beyond their employees to other local nurses who value the highly flexible schedules of gig work. 
  • The shift is among many ways hospitals are revamping hiring, schedules and pay to give nurses more control and to fill staffing gaps created by persistent labor shortages. Vacancies are straining many hospitals’ operations despite recent hiring gains at hospitals and reports of softer demand from some temporary-staffing companies.

• Healthcare Dive informs us
  • Pharmacists are arguing they should play a more active role in care teams by being allowed to practice the full scope of their license, according to comments at the HIMSS conference in Chicago.
  • Nearly half of U.S. counties have shortages of primary care providers, with just one of those doctors for every 1,500 people, while 61% of those counties have a high volume of retail pharmacy locations that could help make up the deficit, according to new data from health IT network Surescripts.
  • But pharmacists at HIMSS say they need access to a greater range of medical data to get there.
• OPM held a session on this topic on the first day of its FEHB carrier conference on March 29.

• Beckers Payer Issues reports
  • CVS Health has named Brian Kane as executive vice president and president of Aetna, effective September 1.
  • Mr. Kane will report directly to CVS President and CEO Karen Lynch. He is replacing Daniel Finke, who is stepping down for health reasons, according to an April 17 news release.

From the tidbits/miscellany department

• The National Association of Letter Carriers calls attention to the fact that the Postal Service has issued Postal Service Health Benefits Program fact sheets for Postal employees and annuitants.

• The Drug Channels blog makes ten predictions about how the Inflation Reduction Act will impact market access and drug channels.

• Govexec predicts expanded childcare options and higher pay for childcare workers based on an executive order that the President signed today.