From Washington, DC

• Over the past few days, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra has recognized September as Kinship Care Month, Sickle Cell Awareness Month, and Suicide Prevention Month.

• The Washington Post reports,
  • “The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Biden administration to strip millions of health care dollars from Oklahoma over its refusal to refer patients for abortions – a practice the state says would be at odds with its strict ban on terminating pregnancies.”
• and
  • “As updated coronavirus vaccines hit U.S. pharmacy shelves, adults without health insurance are discovering the shots are no longer free, instead costing up to $200.
  • “The federal Bridge Access Program covering the cost of coronavirus vaccines for uninsured and underinsured people ran out of funding. * * *
  • At least 34 million doses of last year’s vaccine were administered to adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 1.5 million were funded through the Bridge Access Program, * * *.

• Per Federal News Network,
  • “The Department of Veterans Affairs’ hospitals are scoring higher than non-VA hospitals on two nationwide surveys that track patient satisfaction and care quality.
  • “Nearly 80% of VA medical facilities received a four or five-star rating in the most recent Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) conducted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
  • “By comparison, 40% of non-VA hospitals received those same star ratings. CMS based its latest HCAHPS scores on data collected between October 2022 and September 2023.
  • “HCAHPS measures patient satisfaction after they’re discharged from the hospital, and tracks 10 criteria — including staff communication and responsiveness, hospital environment of care, willingness to recommend the hospital, and overall hospital rating.
  • “This marks the ninth consecutive quarter in which VA facilities outperformed their non-VA counterparts on this scorecard.”
    
• Reg Jones, writing in FedWeek, explains “how [a federal employee’s] retirement will be calculated when they retire.”

From the public health and medical research front,

• CNN reports,
  • “Measuring the levels of three biomarkers in blood in midlife may give women a clearer picture of their risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attacks and strokes decades earlier than current risk calculators do, a new study suggests.
  • “When it comes to the worries that women have about their health, heart disease isn’t usually at the top of the list – but it probably should be.
  • “Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in the United States. In 2021, it was responsible for the deaths of more than 310,000 women, about 1 in every 5 female deaths, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 80% of women ages 40 to 60 are living with at least one risk factor for coronary artery disease, research has found, but only about half of women recognize heart disease as their biggest health risk.
  • “Experts say that having better measures of risk earlier in life might help women take critical steps to improve their health before it’s too late.
  • ‘The tests highlighted in the study are not new. “These are widely available. It’s nothing more than checking off a box with a lab slip,” said study author Dr. Paul Ridker, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. They are also inexpensive, he says, ranging from $10 to $12 per test.
  • “The study found that these three test results, considered together, could predict cardiovascular risk in seemingly healthy women as much as 30 years before a major cardiovascular event like a heart attack or stroke, a finding that Ridker said was astonishing.”

• Per Health Day,
  • “In some people, new-onset depression may stem from the same buildup of toxic plaques in the brain that have long been linked to Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study.
  • “Our findings provide additional support for depressive symptoms as an early feature of preclinical Alzheimer’s disease,” wrote a team led by Catherine Munro. She’s a neuropsychologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. 
  • “It’s not that depression caused Alzheimer’s disease, it’s just that Alzheimer’s disease pathology affecting this part of the brain resulted in depressive symptoms relatively early on in the course,” explained another expert, Dr. Marc Gordon, who wasn’t involved in the study.  
  • “He’s chief of neurology at Northwell’s Zucker Hillside Hospital in Great Neck, N.Y.”

• Roll Call lets us know,
  • “Treating and screening for non-substance-related mental health disorders could help drive down overdoses, a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. 
  • “The study, published Thursday, found that of the 63,424 people who died from drug overdoses across 43 states and Washington, D.C. in 2022, 22 percent had a separate mental health disorder. Analyzing data from the CDC’s State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System, the researchers found that the most common disorders were depression, anxiety and bipolar. 
  • “The authors noted the rates of mental health disorders are likely underestimated.” 

• The New York Times adds that “Some researchers argue that the roles of social environment and personal choice have to be considered in order to make progress in treating people addicted to drugs.”

• Per BioPharma Dive,
  • “Regulators in the U.S. and Europe recently determined that a popular group of drugs for weight loss and diabetes don’t heighten the risk of suicide. New data published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Tuesday appear to back up those assessments, though researchers cautioned that there’s still more work to be done.
  • “The findings come from a pair of large, retrospective evaluations. One reviewed the effects of a so-called GLP-1 drug or another diabetes medication on the risk of suicide or other mental health problems in nearly 300,000 people in Sweden and Denmark. The other looked at the incidence of suicidal thoughts or depression symptoms in 3,600 study volunteers who received the obesity drug Wegovy or a placebo in studies Novo Nordisk ran to secure regulatory approval.
  • “Taken together, the two studies found there wasn’t a greater risk of suicide or poor mental health outcomes in people taking GLP-1s instead of a placebo or comparator drug. The results are notable, as millions of people already take these medicines to lower blood sugar and weight. Adoption is expected to climb in the years ahead as their use is broadened to include other conditions. But in an accompanying editorial, researchers warned that the findings are part of an “incomplete puzzle” that will require further study.”
• and
  • “Shares in vaccine developer Vaxcyte soared by over 35% Tuesday after the company unveiled results from a large study testing its experimental pneumococcal shot which analysts described as a best-case scenario.
  • “Data from the Phase 1/2 trial showed Vaxcyte’s vaccine matched the effectiveness of Pfizer’s market-leading Prevnar 20 in protecting against 20 common strains of the bacteria that causes invasive pneumococcal disease, the company said.
  • “Vaxcyte’s shot covers an additional 11 strains than Prevnar 20, for a total of 31. The company plans to advance its vaccine into a Phase 3 trial program in adults. Initial data from the first study in that program could come by 2026, Vaxcyte said.”

• Per a National Institutes of Health press release,
  • “The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has awarded grants for 10 projects to improve diagnostic tools for congenital and adult syphilis—conditions currently diagnosed with a sequence of tests, each with limited precision. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that adult and congenital syphilis cases increased by 80% and 183% respectively between 2018 and 2022—a crisis that prompted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish a national taskforce to respond to the epidemic.  
  • “Syphilis antibiotics work, but antiquated testing makes it very difficult to ensure that people are appropriately diagnosed and fully treated,” said NIAID Director Jeanne M. Marrazzo, M.D., M.P.H. “Advanced diagnostics could streamline syphilis care and also enhance our ability to measure the efficacy of candidate syphilis vaccines and other prevention modalities.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Beckers Payer Issues tells us five things to know about UnitedHealthcare’s gold card program, which kicks off on October 1.

• Beckers Health IT offers four leadership predictions on the future of artificial intelligence in healthcare.

• Beckers Hospital Review points out,
  • “Philadelphia-based Rite Aid has completed financial restructuring and successfully emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the U.S. drugstore chain filed for protection last October. It will now operate as a private company, according to a Sept. 3 news release. 
  • “Throughout its Chapter 11, the company has cut around $2 billion in debt and received around $2.5 billion in exit financing. The pharmacy retail chain has also closed more than 520 stores since filing for bankruptcy.
  • “Emergence is a pivotal moment in Rite Aid’s history, enabling it to move forward as a significantly transformed, stronger and more efficient company,” Jeffrey Stein, CEO and Chief Restructuring Officer of Rite Aid, said in the release.
  • “Mr. Stein also shared plans to step down as the company exits Chapter 11 protection after just under one year in the role. Matt Schroeder, CFO of Rite Aid, has been appointed CEO, according to another Sept. 3 news release.”
• and
  • how 31 health systems rank by operating margins.
• and
  • names the 20 hospitals with the lowest and highest heart failure rates. Interestingly, the lowest rates are often found in VA hospitals.

• Per Fierce Healthcare,
  • “A monthslong contract dispute between HCA Healthcare and UnitedHealthcare has been resolved just hours before a Sept. 1 deadline would have interrupted network coverage for members in four states.
  • “Thirty-eight hospitals plus their affiliated locations and physician groups within HCA’s Texas, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Denver markets would have been affected had the industry juggernauts not struck an accord.
  • “After months of negotiations, we have reached agreement with UnitedHealthcare,” HCA Healthcare said in an emailed statement. “This means UnitedHealthcare plan members and their families will continue to have access to the convenient and quality healthcare they have come to expect from our care teams.”
• and
  • “There’s no shortage of attention on rising pharmaceutical costs, but policymakers need to have the full picture of trends in this space to work off of, according to a new study.
  • “Researchers at the Bureau of Economic Analysis wanted to account for the role the pharmacy benefit manager-negotiated rebates play in drug pricing trends. They compared claims data with rebate estimates from 2007 to 2020 and found that retail pharmacy prices increased by 9.1% each year.
  • “Negotiated prices, however, instead grew by the more modest 4.3% per year, according to the study. In 2016, patient out-of-pocket spending also rose, while negotiated cost growth largely remained flat.
  • “Overall, the findings emphasize the importance of accurate measurement to inform policy discussions regarding prices in prescription drug markets,” the researchers wrote. “Given the data limitations, more work is needed to provide a complete and accurate picture of how pharmaceutical prices are changing in this sector of growing economic importance.”

• Per MedTech Dive,
  • “Embecta received 510(k) clearance from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday for its first insulin patch pump.
  • “The device can be used by people with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes and worn for up to three days. It includes a 300-unit insulin reservoir so that people with higher daily insulin needs can wear it for all three days.
  • “Embecta said Tuesday it plans to develop a closed-loop version of the pump for automated insulin dosing that it will submit to the FDA in the future.”