Thursday Miscellany

David Ermer–CMS, Congress, COVID-19, Electronic health records, FDA, Mental health care, OPM, Rx coverage, SDOH, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Josh Mills on Unsplash

From our Nation’s capital

  • Govexec informs us that the President “doubled down Thursday on his administration’s commitment to using the federal government’s power to support underserved communities and advance racial equity.  A new executive order issued by the president builds on one he signed his first day in office as well as other executive and legislative actions.”
  • “The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Department of Labor, and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) have developed and launched a new portal on USAJOBS for prospective Federal interns. Located at intern.usajobs.gov, the Federal Internship Portal is a one-stop shop for prospective interns to find opportunities and apply for internships in the Federal government.”
  • The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a hearing on PBM transparency and accountability, which Fierce Healthcare describes as the hearing as “heated.”
  • The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on healthcare workforce shortages, which Fierce Healthcare describes as the beginning of “a major effort to shore up the healthcare workforce after lingering shortages have roiled the industry.”
  • The U.S. Commissioner of Food and Drugs updated the public on his agency’s efforts prevent drug overdoses and reduce deaths.
    • In related news from MedPage Today, “Advisors to the FDA unanimously recommended the agency approve the first over-the-counter (OTC) naloxone (Narcan) product, though many committee members expressed continued concern about user instructions for the opioid overdose reversal drug. * * *While the FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its advisory committees, it typically does.”

From the medical research front

  • STAT News tells us, “A team of researchers from Stanford and University of California San Francisco have built a predictive model that uses electronic health records to calculate the risk of sepsis, cerebral palsy, and other serious conditions in newborns. The team trained a deep learning model on health records from more than 30,000 mother-newborn pairs treated in the Stanford health system, building a neural network that could predict 24 different health outcomes. The researchres, who also published an interactive website for readers to explore the network’s data. said the predictions outperformed currently-used risk scores.” 
  • Nature explains “How a pioneering diabetes drug teplizumab offers hope for preventing autoimmune disorders. Approving an antibody therapy that pauses the progression of type 1 diabetes is a first in the field, and some say, a model for other drug developers.
  • The National Institutes of Health disclosed that “Black and Hispanic Americans appear to experience more symptoms and health problems related to long COVID, a lay term that captures an array of symptoms and health problems, than white people, but are not as likely to be diagnosed with the condition, according to new research funded by the National Institutes of Health. The findings – from two different studies by NIH’s Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative – add to a growing body of research aimed to better understand the complex symptoms and other issues associated with long COVID that millions have experienced.”
  • The All of Us program shared its research roundup, focusing on heart disease this month.
  • The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation offers an award-winning scholar’s “Lessons From the Intersection of Race, Inequality, and Health.”
  • The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review “released a Draft Evidence Report assessing the comparative clinical effectiveness and value of resmetirom (Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) and obeticholic acid (Ocaliva®, Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). This preliminary draft marks the midpoint of ICER’s eight-month process of assessing these treatments, and the findings within this document should not be interpreted to be ICER’s final conclusions.“

From the U.S. healthcare business front —

  • Beckers Payer Issues identified over thirty payers who made Forbes rankings of top U.S. employers.
  • Beckers also reports, “A federal judge granted Cigna a temporary restraining order in its lawsuit alleging former executive Amy Bricker’s departure for rival CVS Health violated a noncompete agreement, Bloomberg Law reported Feb. 15.”  A TRO is a short duration order that allows the court time to consider awarding a preliminary injunction.
  • According to Healthcare Dive
    • CommonSpirit Health announced Wednesday that it will acquire regional health system Steward Health Care in Utah for $685 million.
    • The deal marks CommonSpirit’s entry into Utah, expanding the hospital operator’s footprint to a total of 22 states.
    • CommonSpirit will acquire five hospitals from Steward, along with more than 40 clinics and other ambulatory services, the system said. The deal is expected to close later this year. CommonSpirit’s Centura Health will manage the Utah sites.
  • Also from Healthcare Dive
    • Wednesday is the last day that LHC Group will trade on the Nasdaq, suggesting UnitedHealth will complete its acquisition of the home health business prior to market open on Thursday.
    • LHC’s stock will be halted aftermarket on Wednesday, according to a Nasdaq notice. As a result, the merger is tentatively scheduled to close the next morning, subject to pending regulatory approvals.
    • Speculation that the Federal Trade Commission will move to block the $5.4 billion deal has been rampant, but reports late last month suggest that regulators are unlikely to challenge the transaction. 
    • Louisiana-based LHC is a major player in the home health space, with more than 960 locations in 37 states and $2.2 billion in revenue last year
  • The Baton Rouge Business Report discusses a foundation that would be created in the wake of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana sale would have more than $3 billion in assets. The Accelerate Louisiana Initiative, as the foundation would be called, would be one of the largest private foundations in the nation, says Cindy Wakefield with BCBSLA. 
  • Fierce Healthcare reports, “EHR provider Elation Health announced its acquisition of medical billing company Lightning MD. The growth adds a piece to the Elation puzzle as it seeks to become the sector’s first all-in-one technology solution for primary care practices, the company said.”

From the miscellany department —

  • Health Payer Intelligence reports, “AHIP Asks CMS to Reconsider Proposed Medicare Advantage Policy Changes. The extensive policy changes included in the proposed rule will negatively impact Medicare Advantage beneficiaries and plans, AHIP said.” It’s easier to write up orders than to implement them.
  • CMS announced that “a new chart titled Top 10 Section 111 Group Health Plan Reporting Errors, covering the July 1 – December 31, 2022, is now available in the Download section below.  Descriptions of these and all reporting errors are available for review in the GHP User Guide.”
  • WTW explains “What the end of the COVID-19 emergencies will mean for group health plans.”