From Washington, DC

• The Hill reminds us,
  • “The calendar will officially turn to March this week, putting Congress in the same month as the looming March 14 government shutdown deadline. Despite that date fast-approaching, however, lawmakers in both parties have still not struck a deal to keep the lights on in Washington past the middle of next month — raising the possibility of a shutdown.”
    
• Federal News Network notes,
  • “Federal employees across the country, many of whom have worked from home since the COVID-19 pandemic, were back at agency offices Monday under President Donald Trump’s return-to-office mandate.”

• HUB International discusses the Labor Department and CMS 2023 Mental Health Parity Compliance reports.
  • While not an exclusive or comprehensive list of all possible violations, the [article’s] list provides some guidance on the types of issues the Departments view as violations (particularly on the NQTL side). Employers should review their plan designs for any potential MHPAEA violations based on the [article’s] enforcement data and work with their providers to rectify any noncompliant design elements.
    
• The Labor Department’s Inspector General released a report on Mental Health Parity Enforcement encouraging more resources be given to the enforcers. The FEHBlog believes that this additional cost can be avoided by simplifying the Mental Health Parity rule.

• The HHS Inspector General reports “Medicare Part D Spending for 10 Selected Diabetes Drugs [including GLP-1 drugs] Totaled $35.8 Billion in 2023, an Increase of 364 Percent From 2019.”

• MedPage Today tells us,
  • “The FDA approved adaptive deep brain stimulation (DBS) technology (BrainSense adaptive DBS and BrainSense electrode identifier) for people with Parkinson’s disease, Medtronic announced Monday.
  • “Like other DBS devices, the newly approved technology uses a surgically implanted neurostimulator to transmit electrical signals. The adaptive feature adjusts therapy based on a patient’s neural activity in real time, reducing the need to manually adjust stimulation.
  • “Adaptive deep brain stimulation will help revolutionize the approach to therapeutic treatment for patients with Parkinson’s disease,” said Helen Bronte-Stewart MD, MSE, of Stanford University School of Medicine in California, in a statement. “The transformative personalized care we can achieve through automatic adjustment greatly benefits patients receiving therapy that adapts to their evolving needs.”

From the judicial front,

• Per Govexec,
  • “An independent federal oversight agency has deemed at least some of President Trump’s mass firings of probationary period employees unlawful, creating a pathway for those employees to regain their jobs. 
  • “The Office of Special Counsel, the agency responsible for investigating illegal actions taken against federal employees, issued its decision for six employees, each at different agencies. While the decision was technically limited in scope, it could have immediate impact on all terminated staff at those six agencies and could set a wide-ranging precedent across government. It has not been made public and was provided to Government Executive by a source within the government. OSC, which did not provide the document to Government Executive, verified its authenticity. 
  • “OSC has turned the case over to the quasi-judicial Merit Systems Protection Board for enforcement of its findings and is so far requesting a 45-day stay on the firing decisions. The agency said it will use that time to further investigate the dismissals and determine the best way to mitigate the consequences from the apparent unlawful actions. 
  • “MSPB has three business days to issue a decision on the stay request. If it does not act by that deadline, the stay will go into effect.”

• It’s worth adding that the Scotusblog explains
  • “The Supreme Court on Friday [February 21] left in place for now an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that instructed President Donald Trump to temporarily reinstate the head of an independent federal agency [the Office of Special Counsel] tasked with protecting whistleblowers from retaliation. The justices did not act on a request from the Trump administration to block the order by U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, which had restored Hampton Dellinger as head of the Office of Special Counsel for 14 days, beginning on Feb. 12. Instead, the justices explained in a brief order, they put the government’s request on hold until Jackson’s order expires on Feb. 26.”

• Per Healthcare Dive,
  • “Express Scripts, Caremark and Optum Rx are turning to an appeals court to try to reverse a legal setback in their ongoing feud with the Federal Trade Commission.
  • “The PBMs said on Friday they will ask the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to halt the agency’s suit against them for allegedly inflating the cost of insulin, three days after a Missouri district judge ruled the FTC’s case could move forward.
  • “The PBMs — known as the “Big Three” for their outsized control of the U.S. prescription drug market — also asked the district judge again for an injunction halting the FTC’s suit pending their appeal. Express Scripts, Caremark and Optum Rx intend to ask the 8th Circuit for an injunction in one week unless the district court complies.”

From the public health and medical research front,

• The Washington Post reports,
  • “Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States and accounted for 941,652 deaths in 2022, according to a report published by the American Heart Association.
  • “In the United States in 2022, heart disease and stroke killed more people than all forms of cancer and accidental deaths. Coronary heart disease was the leading cause of death attributable to cardiovascular disease (39.5 percent), followed by stroke (17.6 percent), other cardiovascular diseases (17 percent), hypertensive diseases (14 percent), heart failure (9.3 percent) and diseases of the arteries (2.6 percent), the AHA said. More people died of cardiovascular causes in 2022 than 2021, when there were 931,578 cardiovascular deaths, according to the report.
  • “The report also notes that between 2017 and 2020, nearly half of U.S. adults (48.6 percent) had some form of cardiovascular disease. According to the AHA, 59 percent of non-Hispanic Black women and 58.9 percent of non-Hispanic Black men had cardiovascular disease.
  • “Advances in clinical diagnosis and treatment have lessened the burden of heart disease over time, but more needs to be done to treat major risk factors, including obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, said Keith Churchwell, a physician and clinical professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine who serves as volunteer president of the American Heart Association.”

• The American Medical Association lets us know “what doctors wish patients knew about cancer screening and prevention.”

• Healio informs us,
  • “Paxlovid may not decrease the risk for hospitalization or death in older adults vaccinated against COVID-19 as much as previously thought, according to research published in JAMA.
  • “Since the strongest predictor of severe COVID-19 is advanced age, it has been crucial to obtain evidence on whether the results of the Pfizer trials” — which showed Paxlovid reduced COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in unvaccinated adults — “generalized to older and vaccinated populations,” John Mafi, MD, MPH, associate professor-in-residence of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, said in a press release.
  • “At best, Mafi and colleagues wrote, Paxlovid could reduce COVID-19-related hospitalization by 1.3 percentage points, or 4 times less than the 5.5 percentage-point risk reduction reported in Pfizer’s original trial among unvaccinated adults.
  • “Our study effectively rules out the notion that Paxlovid causes large reductions in hospitalization in vaccinated older adults,” Mafi said. “While we cannot rule out a small reduction in COVID-19 hospitalization, our results indicate that, at best, Paxlovid’s potential effect on COVID-19 hospitalization among vaccinated older adults is four times weaker than the effect originally reported in Pfizer’s 2022 clinical trial.”
    
• Consumer Reports< writing in the Washington Post, explores “How to keep your bones strong. Worried about osteoporosis? Here are the tests, moves, meds and foods you need to know about.”

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • Frozen shakes served in hospitals and nursing homes have been recalled after being linked to a deadly outbreak of listeria, resulting in 12 deaths and sickening at least 38 people in 21 states.
  • The shakes, sold under the brands Lyons ReadyCare and Sysco Imperial, were made in the same facility in Fort Wayne, Ind., and have been recalled by both companies.
  • Listeria can cause serious illness, especially in newborns, older people, and those with weakened immune systems, and can survive on surfaces for long periods.
• and
  • “Red-light therapy, a treatment involving exposure to low levels of red or near-infrared light, is gaining popularity for its purported benefits in weight loss, antiaging and mood balance.
  • “While some research shows promise in areas like dermatology and mood disorders, more evidence is needed to confirm its broader health benefits.
  • “Consumers should be cautious when purchasing red-light therapy devices, as there are no established standards for wavelength, intensity and length of treatment, and some products may not be effective or safe.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• The American Hospital Association News fills us in on its ongoing rural healthcare leadership conference.

• Per BioPharma Dive,
  • “Summit Therapeutics and Pfizer on Monday said they will test an experimental Summit immunotherapy with Pfizer’s antibody drug conjugates in trials evaluating two of the sector’s most closely watched types of cancer medicines.
  • “Pfizer will oversee the clinical trials, which will involve Summit’s ivonescimab and multiple different Pfizer ADCs against certain solid tumors. The two companies will retain commercialization rights to their respective products, Summit said.
  • “According to Summit, the deal “will allow us to quickly advance beyond our promising late-stage development plan,” which already includes multiple studies in lung cancer. The companies didn’t provide specifics, but said the trials will begin in the middle of the year and aim to find “potentially landscape-changing combinations.”

• Beckers Payer Issues relates,
  • Bon Secours Mercy Health and Cigna Healthcare will be out of network across eight Virginia hospitals [listed in the article] on April 1.
  • Almost all of Cigna’s business with Bon Secours is through employer-sponsored plans that are self-funded. If Bon Secours Mercy Health leaves our network, OAP and PPO members will be affected.

• Beckers Hospital Review discusses “the twofold challenge of an older population — and how systems are adapting.”
  • “In less than a decade, older Americans are projected to outnumber children for the first time in U.S. history, sparking conversations about the need for age-friendly healthcare. 
  • “At the same time, declining birth rates and longer life expectancies — half of babies born in 2020 are expected to live past 100 years — pose potential workforce challenges.
  • “Becker’s connected with four health system leaders [in this article] to explore the challenges this demographic shift presents and how they are preparing to address it.”