From Washington DC,

• The Washington Post reports
  • “The White House on Thursday urged Congress to adopt a short-term measure to fund the federal government, a move meant to buy time for lawmakers to craft a broader spending deal and avert a shutdown at the end of September.
  • “The Biden administration coupled its call to action with a new request that Congress address funding for a series of cash-starved programs — including, for example, an additional $1.4 billion to prevent a potential disruption in nutritional aid for low-income families.”

• HHS Secretary Xavier Berrara reflected on the Administration’s efforts to end the opioid public health emergency on this International Overdose Awareness Day.

• In related news, the New York Times informs us
  • “Narcan, the first opioid overdose reversal medication approved for over-the-counter purchase, is being shipped to drugstore and grocery chains nationwide, its manufacturer said Wednesday. Big-box outlets like Walgreens, CVS, Walmart and Rite Aid said they expected Narcan to be available online and on many store shelves early next week.
  • “Public health experts have long called for greater accessibility to the drug, which they describe as a critical weapon against rising overdose rates. There were more than 100,000 opioid overdose fatalities in each of the last two years in the United States.
  • “Narcan is already a staple for emergency personnel and street outreach teams. Now scientists and health officials are hoping Narcan will eventually become commonplace in public libraries, subways, dorms, corner delis and street vending machines.
  • “They also predict it may become a fixture in medicine cabinets, as more people realize that illicit party drugs like cocaine and counterfeit Xanax pills may be tainted with deadly fentanyl, an opioid.”

• Govexec relates
  • “President Biden on Thursday formalized his plan to provide civilian federal employees with an average 5.2% pay increase, their largest in four decades, in a letter to congressional leaders.
  • “In March, Biden first announced his pay raise plan as part of his fiscal 2024 budget proposal, recommending the largest pay increase for civilian federal workers since the Carter administration. Thursday’s announcement confirms that, if implemented, federal employees will see an across-the-board increase in basic pay of 4.7% and an average 0.5% boost to locality pay.
  • “In his letter, Biden said the pay raise is critical to his administration’s goal of ensuring that the federal government is a model employer and able to attract qualified candidates to join the workforce.”

• The U.S. Office of Personnel Management announced issuing
  • the final regulations to implement the Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act of 2019 (Fair Chance Act), which prohibits federal agencies and federal contractors from requesting an applicant’s criminal history information before the agency makes a conditional offer of employment to the applicant. The final regulations also provide applicants with a complaint process and hold accountable federal employees who are in violation of the Fair Chance Act. 
  • “If you have the qualifications, skills, and willingness to serve the American public, you deserve a fair chance to compete for employment within the federal government,” said Kiran Ahuja, OPM Director. “America is a nation of second chances, and every person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.” 

From the Medicare front,

• MedPage Today reports on CMS efforts to recruit specialty practices in Medicare value-based purchasing programs.

• Milliman issued a white paper titled “Part D redesign under the Inflation Reduction Act / Potential financial ramifications for Part D plans and pharmaceutical manufacturers.” Check it out.

• CMS recently announced
  • “a new voluntary nationwide model – the Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) Model – a model test that aims to support people living with dementia and their unpaid caregivers. CMS is accepting letters of interest for the GUIDE Model through September 15, 2023, and will release a GUIDE Request for Applications (RFA) for the model in Fall 2023. The model will launch on July 1, 2024, and run for eight years. * * *
  • “Participants in the GUIDE Model will establish dementia care programs (DCPs) that provide ongoing, longitudinal care and support to people living with dementia through an interdisciplinary team. GUIDE participants will be Medicare Part B enrolled providers/suppliers, excluding durable medical equipment (DME) and laboratory suppliers, who are eligible to bill for Medicare Physician Fee Schedule services and agree to meet the care delivery requirements of the model.”

From the public health and medical research fronts

• We have four articles from STAT News
  • Miscarriage treatment news. “A [Woodbury,] Minnesota clinic tries to rewrite medicine’s approach to miscarriage.” Bravo.
  • CAR-T Therapy News — “Saar Gill and Carl June, cell therapy researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, wanted to make a single treatment that could tackle virtually all blood cancers. It was an audacious goal. * * *
  • “On Thursday, though, Gill, June and a graduate student, Nils Wellhausen, published a solution in Science Translational Medicine. It’s a complicated dance involving a new form of genome editing and multiple cellular infusions, and still years away from clinical trials. But outside experts say that if academics or companies can figure out manufacturing and logistics, it could open new avenues to tackling cancers that have so far remained out of reach.
  • “It’s very clever and really a tour de force,” said Marcela Maus, director of the cellular immunotherapy program at Mass General Hospital.”
  • Depression treatment news — “A single dose of psilocybin may have enduring benefits for people with major depressive disorder, according to a randomized clinical trial published Thursday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.”
  • AD Treatment News — Drug firms are studying whether drugs like Leqembi can halt Alzheimer’s Disease before symptoms appears.

• From the U.S. healthcare business front,
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “GoodRx has launched a new feature to allow healthcare professionals to see the cost of a patient’s prescription with their insurance.
    • “The real-time benefit check (RTBC) feature was developed in collaboration with AssistRx, a specialty therapy initiation and patient solutions provider. The RTBC surfaces a patient’s coverage and benefits at the point of care with the goal of increasing price transparency and access to drugs. It also includes whether a prior authorization is required.
    • “AssistRx built its advanced access and patient support solutions to be interoperable, Edward Hensley, the company’s co-founder and chief commercial officer, said in a press release.”