From Washington, DC,

• The House of Representatives and the Senate remain in session on Capitol Hill this week for Committee business and floor voting.

• Reuters adds, “U.S. President Joe Biden will put forth his proposed U.S. spending plan [tomorrow] March 11, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.”

• Today, the Department of Health and Human Services posted a letter to healthcare leaders about the Change Healthcare cyberattack.
  • We urge insurance companies and other payers to:
    • Make interim payments to impacted providers. Larger payers in particular have the balance sheet stability to advance payments. Payers have the opportunity to stop-gap the cash flow concerns by stepping in with bridge payments [FEHBlog note — assuming that the payer doesn’t rely on Change Healthcare for backend claims processing.}
    • In particular, for Medicaid plans, consider making interim payments to impacted providers.
    • Ease the administrative burden on providers by simplifying electronic data interchange requirements and timelines and by accepting paper claims. 
    • Pause prior authorizations and other utilization management requirements; use all available leeway on deadlines.

• The Washington Post further reports,
  • “Federal health officials on Saturday said they would offer emergency funding to physicians, physical therapists and other professionals that provide outpatient health care, following a cyberattack that crippled the nation’s largest processor of medical claims and left many organizations in financial distress.
  • “The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also announced that it would make advance payments available to suppliers that bill through Medicare Part B, which serves a wide array of health-care organizations. Officials had previously announced a similar program to make emergency payments available for hospitals that had been ensnared by the Feb. 21 hack of Change Healthcare, a unit of UnitedHealth Group, and have struggled to get paid for more than two weeks. The emergency funds represent upfront payments made to health-care providers and suppliers based on their expected future claims. * * *
  • “It’s going to help significantly,” added Farzad Mostashari, the CEO of Aledade, the nation’s largest network of independent physician practices. Mostashari had previously warned that as many as 25 percent of physician practices were in financial distress.”

From the public health and medical research front,

• According to the Centers for Disease Control,
  • “Activity Levels Update:
    • “The amount of respiratory illness (fever plus cough or sore throat) causing people to seek healthcare is elevated across many areas of the country. This week, 20 jurisdictions experienced high or very high activity compared to 26 jurisdictions previous week.
    • “Nationally, emergency department visits with diagnosed COVID-19, influenza, and RSV are decreasing.
    • “Influenza test positivity remained stable nationally. COVID-19 and RSV test positivity decreased compared to the previous week.
    • “Nationally, COVID-19 wastewater viral activity levels, which reflects both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections, has decreased to moderate.
  • “Reported on Friday, March 8th, 2024.“

• Fortune Well offers advices on pregnancy in advance maternal age (at age 35 or older).

• The Washington Post tells us,
  • “Tai chi, a gentle Chinese martial art involving slow movements, outperformed moderate aerobic exercise in lowering blood pressure in a recent clinical trial.
  • “An analysis, published in JAMA Network Open, tracked 342 18- to 65-year-olds with prehypertension, or blood pressure that is slightly higher than normal, between late July 2019 and mid-January 2022. * * *
  • “These findings support the important public health value of Tai Chi to promote the prevention of cardiovascular disease in populations with prehypertension,” the researchers conclude. Other research continues to explore the potential benefits of tai chi. The exercises are associated with better balance, fall reduction, and benefits for patients with conditions such as arthritis and fibromyalgia.”

• Bloomberg discusses measles prevention practices for adults born after 1957.
  • “[Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at University of Illinois Chicago] says, adults are sufficiently protected from the measles if one of these four things applies to you:
    • “You had measles at some point in your life.
    • “You were born before 1957.
    • “You’ve had two doses of a measles-containing vaccine if you spend time in a high-risk setting for transmission, like schools or hospitals. 
    • Y”ou’ve had one dose of a vaccine if you don’t spend time in high-risk settings. 
    • “Kids and teens need one or two doses for protection depending on their age.” 
  • If you aren’t sure whether you’ve been vaccinated or had the measles, you can get what’s called an MMR titer test, which is available commercially at various labs for about $129, Wallace advises.

• The Wall Street Journal delves into the development of individual body organ tests.
  • “Measuring organ age is the latest frontier in the world of biological age, the idea that your body’s physical age can be different from its chronological one. For example, a 50-year-old man hypothetically might have physical health that more closely resembles that of a 53-year-old, with, say, a 51-year-old heart and a 54-year-old brain.
  • “Knowing the age of your organs might one day help you prevent and treat disease. In theory, if you knew that your heart was aging too fast, you could take steps to ward off heart disease.
  • “Heart aging predicts future heart disease, and brain aging predicts future dementia,” says Hamilton Oh, one of the paper’s lead authors and a graduate student at Stanford.
  • “Walking into your doctor’s office and getting a simple test to determine your organ age is likely still a ways off, but the concept is gaining interest among researchers, doctors and people focused on their own longevity and health. Scientists caution that more research is needed before such a technology might be ready for mainstream use. Some also say that parts of the recent study made too many assumptions.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• The Dispatch informs us,
  • “A 2021 study published by the RAND Corporation found that, even after rebates and other discounts, U.S. prescription drug prices were, on average, nearly twice as high as those in countries including Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. A 2024 study, also conducted by the RAND Corporation for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, similarly found that 2022 drug prices in the U.S. were nearly three times higher than those in the 33 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries used in the comparison.
  • “However, the study also found that, on average, unbranded generic drugs were about a third cheaper in the U.S. than in other comparison countries, meaning Americans are actually paying less for these drugs than they would elsewhere. “This finding suggests that robust price competition in U.S. unbranded generic markets continues to drive savings for consumers and health care payers relative to spending on these drugs in other countries,” the study said. Even though generic drugs make up 90 percent of U.S. prescription volume, the substantially higher cost for brand-name drugs still results in a higher average cost for all drugs in the U.S. than elsewhere, according to the report.”

• HR Dive lets us know,
  • “Judge J. Campbell Barker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated the National Labor Relations Board’s joint employer rule late Friday. The rule was set to go into effect Monday.
  • “The new rule would be “contrary to law” and “arbitrary and capricious,” Barker ruled. The court had been considering a legal challenge brought in November by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, along with other business groups. 
  • “Federal agencies and employers now await a possible court decision on the U.S. Department of Labor’s independent contractor rule, also set to go in effect Monday.”