From Washington, DC

• A joint session of Congress will be held tomorrow to counting the votes received from the Electoral College. Thereafter, the House of Representatives and the Senate will resume organizing the 119th Congress.

• On January 3, the President issued a “Memorandum on the Designation of Officials of the Office of Personnel Management to Act as Director.” Such a memorandum has been issued in advance of Presidential Inauguration Day pursuant to the Federal Vacancies Act of 1998.

• The FEHBlog understands
  • “The [Presidential] signing ceremony of HR 82, [the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 which repeals certain laws that reduce Social Security benefits for individuals who receive other benefits, such as a pension from a state or local government, has been moved up to Sunday, January 5 at 4 PM Eastern time.  
  • “We still don’t know whether the ceremony will be broadcast or streamed, but one possible outlet if it is live is https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/

• The President also signed another raft load of bills into law yesterday.

From the public health and medical research front,

• Fortune Well explains why it is particularly important for adults and children to receive the flu vaccine. What’s more,
  • “Don’t worry if you missed the unofficial “vaccine before Halloween” memo. We’re in the thick of cold and flu season and any protection you can provide yourself, your loved ones, and your community will benefit public health, says Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr., medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.
  • “It’s not too late,” Hopkins told Fortune in December. “It is not a bad time when we’ve got risk in front of us. And I would certainly prefer that people were vaccinated earlier, but I’m not going to make perfection the enemy of the good.”

• The Washington Post reports,
  • “People who receive physical therapy shortly after suffering concussions have better outcomes than those who wait longer to start rehabilitation programs, a recent analysis suggests.
  • “Published in the Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Journal, the study reports on a randomized trial of 203 adults diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury, or concussion, who were within two to 12 weeks from their injury.

• NPR Shots shares “nine unexpected things we learned about mental health and our brains in 2024.”

• A commentator in the Wall Street Journal shares her personal experience with chronic pain. For context, she writes
  • “[W]e do know that relentless chronic pain is destabilizing,” says Dr. Scott Fishman, a pain specialist at the University of California, Davis, who founded its Center for Advancing Pain Relief, a rare center that focuses on both the treatment and prevention of pain. 
  • It would be absurd to say that chronic pain drives sufferers to become murderers; the only people pain patients are at any heightened risk of killing is themselves. Yet Fishman likens the effects of enduring pain to “driving on a slippery road. It puts everyone at risk.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “Health tech companies focused on behavioral health are confident that reimbursement trends favor them in 2025.
  • “Payment flexibilities for telehealth, hospital-at-home care and remote prescribing have been temporarily extended until March 31. The changes will prolong COVID-19-era payment for remote care across all specialties.
  • “For many in mental health tech, new reimbursement codes from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ November physician payment rule are an even bigger deal.
  • “The codes reimburse providers for using digital mental health treatment applications or devices that have been cleared or granted De Novo authorization by the Food and Drug Administration.
  • “While the codes are narrow in scope, analysts said the move signifies a larger recognition among CMS and commercial insurers that virtual platforms treating mental health should be reimbursed.”