From the public health front,

• Health Affairs reports
  • “National health expenditures are projected to grow 5.4 percent, on average, over the course of 2022–31 and to account for roughly 20 percent of the economy by the end of that period. The insured share of the population is anticipated to exceed 92 percent through 2023, in part as a result of record-high Medicaid enrollment, and then decline toward 90 percent as coverage requirements related to the COVID-19 public health emergency expire. The prescription drug provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 are anticipated to lower out-of-pocket spending for Medicare Part D enrollees beginning in 2024 and to result in savings to Medicare beginning in 2031.”

• The U.S. Preventive Health Services Task Force gave an inconclusive grade to screening for lipid disorders in children and adolescents 20 years or younger.

• The Wall Street Journal offers ways to protect yourself and your family against the ill effects of forever chemicals that may be in your tap water or else in your homes.

From the regulatory front,

• The Food and Drug Administration “published a safety communication to warn consumers not to use ultrasound medical devices manufactured and distributed by RoyalVibe Health, CellQuicken, and Well-Being Reality. The devices have not been reviewed by the FDA. The safety and effectiveness of these devices have not been established to diagnose, treat, or cure medical conditions.”

• HMFA informs us
  • “Hospital price transparency regulations are undergoing changes heading into their fourth year as CMS seeks to step up enforcement while making compliance more straightforward.
  • “As part of the 2024 proposed rule for hospital outpatient payments, CMS is adding to the requirement for hospitals to maintain a machine-readable file of their charges for services. In addition, enforcement actions against hospitals would be publicized even before assessment of civil monetary penalties.
  • “CMS said the impetus for the proposed technical requirements is feedback from “interested parties” that the files would be more beneficial if they were more standardized.
  • “In particular, IT specialists have indicated that the current flexibilities and lack of encoding specifications hinder the machine-readability of the data in the files, presenting a barrier to the intended use of the data,” CMS wrote. “Additionally, hospitals have asked us for more specificity on how they should publicly display their standard charge information, with an emphasis on how they should explain and display their payer-specific negotiated charges.”
  • “The agency also said enforcement would be easier if the files were more consistent.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Fierce Healthcare lets us know,
  • “In the past 10 years, there has been a dramatic shift in physician practice ownership as less than half of doctors now work in private practices, according to a new analysis.
  • “Between 2012 and 2022, the share of physicians working in private practices fell by 13 percentage points from 60.1% to 46.7%.
  • “In contrast, the share of physicians working in hospitals as direct employees or contractors increased from 5.6% to 9.6% in the same 10-year time period, and the share of physicians working in practices at least partially owned by a hospital or health system increased from 23.4% to 31.3%, according to a benchmark analysis the American Medical Association. * * *
  • “In 2022, 4.5% of physicians worked in a practice owned by a private equity group, similar to the percentage in 2020 when the AMA first added private equity to the analysis.
  • “According to the analysis, there also has been a redistribution of physicians from small to large practices. The share of physicians in small practices (10 or fewer physicians) shrank from 61.4 % to 51.8% between 2012 and 2022. Conversely, the share of physicians in large practices (50 physicians or more) grew from 12.2% to 18.3% in the same 10-year time period.
  • “The shares of physicians in mid-sized practices (those with 11 to 24 and 25 to 49 physicians) remained relatively stable over the last decade.”

• BioPharma Dive informs us,
  • “Biotechnology startup creator Flagship Pioneering is teaming up with Pfizer to develop 10 new drug candidates, with each company pledging to invest $50 million in the new effort.
  • “Together, Flagship and Pfizer will take stock of the technologies available to the former firm and its affiliated startups, hunting for opportunities to develop medicines aligned with Pfizer’s research priorities. Per deal terms announced Tuesday, Pfizer will fund the development of selected medicines, each of which it can choose to acquire later.
  • “The collaboration involves Flagship’s “Pioneering Medicines” initiative, which has struck similarly structured deals in the recent past with Novo Nordisk and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.”

• Healthcare Dive relates,
  • “Teladoc Health is expanding its partnership with Microsoft, announcing plans to add artificial intelligence tools for clinical documentation to its telehealth platform for hospitals and health systems.
  • “The companies will work to integrate Microsoft Azure’s OpenAI Service and Cognitive Services and Microsoft-owned Nuance’s Dragon Ambient eXperience into its Solo platform, allowing physicians to automatically transcribe clinical notes during virtual patient exams.
  • “Teladoc’s medical group also plans to use DAX Express, a version of the medical scribe that uses the large language model GPT-4 and doesn’t require human authentication, the New York-based telehealth vendor said. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.”

From the Rx coverage front, the Drug Channel blog delves into the biosimilars’ challenge to Humira. The article illustrates the relatively new distinction between low-list drug prices and high-list drug prices. Low list prices do not include a manufacturer rebate. The FEHBlog understands that the distinction is driven by the Inflation Reduction Act.