Friday Factoids

Congress

Friday Factoids

David Ermer–CDC, Congress, COVID-19, FDA, Generative AI, Medical / Rx research, Mental health care, OPM, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Manasvita S on Unsplash

From Washington DC

  • Roll Call reports on the state of FY 2024 appropriations negotiations on Capitol Hill. Your guess on the impending outcome is as good as mine.
  • The U.S. Office of Personnel Management released
    • “a new Workforce of the Future Playbook today supporting a federal workforce that is inclusive, agile and engaged, and equipped with the right skills to deliver for the American people. The Playbook provides concrete actions that agencies can take to build and equip the workforce of the future, incorporating new strategies and sharing best practices across government. 
    • “OPM is 100% invested in strengthening the federal workforce,” said OPM Director Kiran Ahuja. “This Playbook is just another example of OPM’s ongoing efforts to equip federal agencies with the tools and resources to hire the right talent and strategically plan for their future workforce. The federal government works best when we leverage the full talent of our nation and workforce – this playbook is full of useful strategies to do just that. * * *
    • “Coming soon, OPM will provide guidance through webinars, training, and technical assistance from subject matter experts to support agencies in their implementation of these strategies. The Playbook will serve as the building block for a future workforce that promotes increased effectiveness and efficiency in service to the American people. Periodic updates will be posted to the Workforce of the Future webpage.” 
  • The Department of Justice announced,
    • “Settlements and judgments under the False Claims Act exceeded $2.68 billion in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2023, Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer and Civil Division Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton announced today. The government and whistleblowers were party to 543 settlements and judgments, the highest number of settlements and judgments in a single year. Recoveries since 1986, when Congress substantially strengthened the civil False Claims Act, now total more than $75 billion. * * *
    • “Of the more than $2.68 billion in False Claims Act settlements and judgments reported by the Department of Justice this past fiscal year, over $1.8 billion related to matters that involved the health care industry, including managed care providers, hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, long-term acute care facilities, and physicians. The amounts included in the $1.8 billion reflect recoveries arising only from federal losses, but in many of these cases, the department was instrumental in recovering additional amounts for state Medicaid programs. The recoveries in fiscal year 2023 also reflect the department’s focus on key enforcement priorities, including fraud in pandemic relief programs and alleged violations of cybersecurity requirements in government contracts and grants.”
  • Medscape informs us,
    • “The Food and Drug Administration has granted De Novo classification to a sleep apnea feature developed by Samsung for use via the Health Monitor app, according to a company press release.
    • “The sleep apnea feature will be available on watches in Samsung’s Galaxy series in the third quarter of 2024, according to the press release.
    • “The new feature on the app is designed to help users with no previous diagnosis of sleep apnea to detect moderate to severe symptoms over a two-night period.
    • “The sleep apnea feature allows individuals older than 22 years to track their sleep twice for more than 4 hours within a 10-day period. The feature identifies breathing disruptions.”
  • MedTech Dive adds,
    • “The Food and Drug Administration warned patients against using smartwatches or smart rings that claim to measure blood sugar without piercing the skin. 
    • “Officials published the safety notice Wednesday after learning that people are selling wearables that claim to noninvasively monitor blood glucose. The devices are “manufactured by dozens of companies and sold under multiple brand names,” according to the agency. 
    • “The FDA has never authorized a noninvasive wearable that measures or estimates blood glucose values on its own and is concerned inaccurate readings could lead to errors in the management of diabetes.”
  • Govexec reports,
    • “The U.S. Postal Service has continued to see slower mail delivery across the country, with delays picking up as the agency is in the throes of transforming its entire network. 
    • “Postal management has repeatedly pointed to isolated incidents causing temporary disruptions—rather than any systemic issues—to explain the declining performance, though the trend has now persisted for nearly six months and is causing stakeholders and advocates to question the true root of the problem.
    • “USPS is now delivering just 83% of First-Class mail on time during the current fiscal quarter, its worst rate in three years. That is down from 86% in the first quarter and 91% in both the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023 and the same period last year.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Centers for Disease Control tells us about the changing threat of Covid-19
    • What CDC knows
    • The impact of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has changed dramatically since 2020. Although COVID-19 remains common, when compared to 2020, individual infections are less likely to result in severe illness for most people in the United States. COVID-19 poses the highest risk for older adults, infants, and people with pre-existing medical conditions, and there are multiple ways people and communities can help reduce their risk of infection.
    • What CDC is doing
    • CDC continues to partner with state and local health authorities to collect and share data on COVID-19 community spread, hospitalizations, deaths, and Long COVID.  Additionally, CDC continues to evaluate the effectiveness of prevention and treatment strategies for the virus in order to provide the public the best evidence-based recommendations for reducing their risk from COVID-19.
    • Keep reading: The Changing Threat of COVID-19
  • Medscape notes,
    • Exercising for upwards of 30 minutes most days may help relieve pain in patients who’ve been diagnosed with cancer, according to a study of exercise and pain outcomes from more than 60,000 people, including 10,000 with a history of cancer. 
    • Study participants who’d been diagnosed with cancer and surpassed 150 minutes of moderate activity a week were 16% less likely to report pain than those who did not exercise or who exercised less. Exercise was particularly helpful for those with moderate to severe pain. In general, the more people exercised, the less pain they felt — and that was true for those with and without a history of cancer.
    • “This adds to a large evidence base regarding other benefits of exercise after cancer,” said lead study author Christopher Swain, PhD, a researcher at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who studies how physical activity can protect against cancer. “It would be great for physicians to encourage physical activity” for anyone who’s ever been diagnosed with cancer. 
  • Axios reports,
    • “Americans see poor mental health as one of the biggest threats to public health, ranking just behind obesity and the long-running opioid epidemic, according to the latest Axios-Ipsos American Health Index.
    • “The big picture: Almost 9 out of 10 people say their own emotional wellbeing is very or somewhat good, but they view mental health issues as a serious societal threat that now outranks access to firearms, cancer or COVID-19. 
    • “And unlike many other perceived threats, there’s a pronounced generational split about mental health, registering as a much bigger concern for younger adults.
    • “The poll also found all but a small pocket of Americans largely tuned out a winter COVID-19 wave that saw the second-largest number of cases since the start of the pandemic, and the public is skeptical about handing over their care to artificial intelligence.
    • “By the numbers: Overall, 17% said mental health was the top threat to public health, while 19% said obesity, 24% said opioids and fentanyl, and 15% said it was access to guns.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • The Employee Benefit Research Institute announced,
    • “New findings released today from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI)/Greenwald Research Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey(CEHCS) reported that consumers were overall satisfied with their health plan selection and services, while high deductible plans showed a slight decline in enrollment.
    • “The CEHCS is a survey of privately insured adults that has been conducted annually since 2005. The survey provides reliable national data on the growth of high deductible health plans (HDHP), consumer driven health plans (CDHP) and health savings accounts (HSA) – and the impact on the behavior and attitudes of health care consumers.  The 2023 survey of 2,020 individuals was conducted using an online research panel between Oct. 16 – Dec. 11, 2023. All respondents were between the ages of 21 and 64. * * *
    • “This year’s survey really shows strong evidence that people overall are satisfied with their health insurance.  Satisfaction levels are steady.  We see no majority is complaining and that is key to understanding market needs,” said Paul Fronstin, Ph.D., director, Health Benefits Research, EBRI.
    • “To view the 2023 CEHCS summary report, visit https://www.ebri.org/cehcs-2023.”
  • Chief Healthcare Executive reports,
    • “Nonprofit hospitals are making some progress financially, although the gains remain modest, according to Fitch Ratings.
    • “Of course, it’s saying something that Fitch’s early projections for the 2023 calendar year continue to show operational declines, although they aren’t as steep as 2022.
    • “Overall, Fitch expects the 2023 operating margins to rise into positive territory, albeit barely. The 2023 margins are expected to rise to 0.5% to 0.7%, which remains below pre-pandemic levels.
    • “In 2024, Fitch projects margins should move up to 1.6%.”
  • MedPage Today discusses whether “Artificial intelligence can improve prior authorization.”
    • “Prior authorization has ripple effects on patients and clinicians, but artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to simplify the process, health policy experts said during an online panel discussion hosted by the Kaiser Family Foundation on Thursday.
    • “Troyen Brennan, MD, a former executive at CVS Care and an adjunct professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, defended the process, arguing that it cuts down on unnecessary care. About 15% to 30% of all care in the U.S. healthcare system is ineffective, Brennan said.
    • “Plus, there are “really not any good studies … showing actual harm,” he argued. “There are a lot of surveys from physicians, in particular, that say that there are tremendous delays, but there’s obviously a response bias associated with this.”

Thursday Miscellany

David Ermer–Congress, FDA, HSA, Medical / Rx research, NIH, Obesity, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Josh Mills on Unsplash

From Washington, DC,

  • American Hospital Association (AHA) News reports,
    • “AHA Feb. 22 voiced support for the Child Suicide Prevention and Lethal Means Safety Act (H.R. 7265), legislation that would provide funding for training programs to help health care workers identify patients at high risk for suicide or self-harm. The bill would also provide grants to facilitate suicide prevention training at health professions schools.”  
  • and
    • “Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bill Cassidy, R-La., Feb. 21 released a report proposing ways to modernize the existing HIPAA framework and protect health and other data not covered by HIPAA. Responding to Cassidy’s request for information on the issue last year, AHA asked Congress to urge the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights to immediately withdraw a rule that would violate HIPAA and its implementing regulations; explore how to better require entities not covered by HIPAA to protect patient privacy; and strengthen HIPAA preemption.”
  • Roll Call tells us,
    • “The House Democratic Women’s Caucus has asked the biggest insurance association to urge insurers to comply with contraceptive coverage requirements and Biden administration guidance issued in January, according to a letter shared first with CQ Roll Call. * * *
    • “The Democratic Women’s Caucus wrote to AHIP President and CEO Mike Tuffin on Thursday urging the group to have its members follow the suggestions HHS outlined. 
    • “Despite repeated clarification of these requirements from the Departments, multiple investigations — including by the House Oversight Committee — have revealed that plans routinely violate the [2010 health care law] by refusing to cover certain products, imposing administrative hurdles like prior authorizations and step therapy (fail first protocols), and requiring patient cost-sharing,” wrote the 143 House members as well as 13 senators.
    • “The members asked Tuffin to respond if insurance plans will be adopting the standard and when; how plans that will not adopt the standard intend to comply with the coverage requirement and if any member plans have been using techniques to deny coverage as described in the HHS guidance. 
    • “The letter also seeks clarity on which plans have an exceptions process publicly available on their websites for when a therapeutically equivalent product does not work for a patient.
    • “The letter requests a response by March 1.”
  • MedTech Dive notes,
    • Better Therapeutics has received breakthrough device status for a digital therapeutic designed to treat adults with advanced liver disease, the company said Tuesday.
    • The Food and Drug Administration awarded the designation after seeing the results of a clinical trial that linked the digital cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to reductions in liver fat.
    • Better Therapeutics won FDA authorization in Type 2 diabetes in July but, like the wider digital therapeutics sector, has struggled to allay concerns about commercialization. The company has discussed substantial doubts about its ability to continue as a going concern. 
  • Mercer Consulting projects “the 2025 inflation-adjusted amounts for health savings accounts (HSAs), high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) and excepted-benefit health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) will all rise from 2024 levels. These unofficial 2025 amounts are determined using the Internal Revenue Code (IRC)’s cost-of-living adjustment methods, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published Chained Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (C-CPI-U) values through January 2024, and Mercer’s projected C-CPI-U values for February and March.”
  • “The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force posted today a final research plan on screening for HIV. The draft research plan for this topic was posted for public comment from November 30, 2023, to January 3, 2024. The Task Force reviewed all of the comments that were submitted and took them into consideration as it finalized the research plan. To view the final research plan, please go here.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • MedPage Today calls our attention to the following
    • “More than 134,000 cancers might have gone undiagnosed during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study of national trends in cancer incidence.
    • “Annual cancer incidence fell almost 30% short of the expected rate from March through December 2020. The difference represented potentially 134,395 undiagnosed cancers during that period. Diagnosis of early- and late-stage cancers declined. Prostate, breast, and lung cancers accounted for the most potential missed cases. Overall, rates of “screenable” cancers decreased by 13.9% versus expected rates. * * *
    • “It is important that we continue to evaluate the trends identified in this study as U.S. cancer incidence data for years after 2020 become available,” the authors wrote. “Pandemic-associated disruptions will continue to affect rates of cancer incidence, and how long it will be until we fully recover is still unknown.”
    • “Beyond incidence, it is important that we measure the pandemic’s contribution to future trends in cancer mortality and survival,” they added. “With a near 10% reduction from expected rates in overall late-stage incidence from March to December 2020, there will undoubtedly — and unfortunately — be a subsequent rise in cancer mortality. How substantial a rise and for how long will provide a more complete picture of the consequences of COVID-19 disruptions on the burden of cancer in the U.S.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that “There’s No Easy Way to Stop Taking Ozempic. Those who go off weight-loss drugs risk regaining weight, but staying on them forever isn’t always a realistic option.” Quite a conundrum. The article discusses approaches to stopping the medicine and alternatives, such as bariatric surgery.

  • The National Institutes of Health announced,
    • “A research project supported by the National Institutes of Health has developed a tool to rapidly and inexpensively diagnose sarcoidosis, a chronic inflammatory disease marked by the growth of tiny lumps called granulomas in the lungs and other organs in the body. The tool, which uses a simple blood test, could allow for selective use of more invasive diagnostic tests often used to identify the disease. The findings published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
    • “Currently, diagnosing sarcoidosis isn’t a straightforward process, and requires tissue removal and testing with additional screenings to rule out other diseases, such as tuberculosis or lung cancer,” said James Kiley, Ph.D., Director of the Division of Lung Diseases at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of NIH. “Using a blood test will help diagnose faster, particularly in those organs that are more challenging to biopsy and with less harm to the patient.”
  • The NIH Director, in her blog discusses “A Potential New Way to Prevent Noise-Induced Hearing Loss: Trapping Excess Zinc.”
    • “Hearing loss is a pervasive problem, affecting one in eight people aged 12 and up in the U.S.1 While hearing loss has multiple causes, an important one for millions of people is exposure to loud noises, which can lead to gradual hearing loss, or people can lose their hearing all at once. The only methods used to prevent noise-induced hearing loss today are avoiding loud noises altogether or wearing earplugs or other protective devices during loud activities. But findings from an intriguing new NIH-supported study  exploring the underlying causes of this form of hearing loss suggest it may be possible to protect hearing in a different way: with treatments targeting excess and damaging levels of zinc in the inner ear.”
  • STAT News points out “Embryo loss is integral to [in vitro fertilization] IVF. [The] Alabama ]Supreme Court]’s ruling equating embryos with children jeopardizes its practice.” For more information, listen to this Advisory Opinions podcast from the Dispatch.

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “Fourteen organizations representing providers, payers, consumer technology companies and employers are teaming up to cut through the noise and raise higher standards for finding digital health solutions that work and are worth the investment.
    • “The new Digital Health Collaborative, supported by the Peterson Health Technology Institute, brings together provider groups, purchasers and end users and initial work will focus on pulling together a national purchaser survey, grantmaking and convenings, the organization said.
    • “The Peterson Health Technology Institute formed in July 2023, armed with $50 million in funding, to evaluate digital health technologies and help cut through the hype to identify innovations that actually benefit patients. PHTI focused on providing independent, evidence-based assessments of emerging products, something that is currently lacking in the market.”
  • BioPharma Dive tells us,
    • “Moderna shares rose by as much as 10% Thursday morning after the COVID-19 vaccine developer reported fourth quarter profit that beat Wall Street expectations of a net loss during the final three months of 2023.
    • “Full-year sales of $6.7 billion matched estimated numbers Moderna disclosed in January, but were down by about two-thirds versus 2022 as COVID vaccination rates declined substantially last year. The company has restructured its manufacturing operations in response to match the lower demand.
    • “Moderna forecasts $4 billion in sales this year, with some expected to come from an experimental vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus that’s under regulatory review in the U.S. and several other countries.”
  • McKnight’s Long Term Care News lets us know,
    • “A shortage of registered nurses in the first two years of the pandemic was probably temporary, according to a new report. That’s because the workforce rebounded in 2022 and 2023, the authors said. Even still, a lot of RNs aren’t going back to hospitals and are moving into other settings including nursing homes and long-term care communities, authors of the report said.
    • “The study, published on Feb. 16 in JAMA Health Forum, noted that the workforce of RNs fell by about 100,000 employees in 2021. That decrease was the largest drop in a single year in the past 40 years. In 2022, hiring started to go back up, according to data from the US Bureau of the Census Current Population Survey. 
    • “The data included RNs between the ages of 23 and 69 who were employed between 1982 and 2023. The researchers also used another cohort of data on employment trends by birth year and age to project the age distribution and employment of RNs through the year 2035. There were 455,085 RNs included in the study. In 2022 and 2023, there were 3.35 million full-time RNs, which is 6% higher than in 2019 when there were 3.16 million nurses.”
  • Per Healthcare Dive,
    • “Walgreens is planning to close its remaining VillageMD clinics in Florida as the beleaguered retail giant continues to cut costs.
    • “VillageMD operated 52 clinics in Florida, but 14 have closed to date. The remainder will shutter by March 15, according to multiple news reports citing Walgreens. The closures fully exit VillageMD from Florida, one of its largest markets and a key target for value-based primary care chains given the state’s large population of elderly patients with chronic health needs.
    • “Walgreens did not share details of what’s driving the closures. But analysts say Walgreens may have struggled getting enough doctors and patients into the smaller clinics, which are co-located within Walgreens stores.”
  • Beckers Hospital News notes,
    • “Grubhub has teamed up with CVS Pharmacy to deliver health and wellness products to consumers in 48 states. 
    • “Grubhub users can now access thousands of products on the mobile ordering and delivery platform from more than 6,000 CVS locations nationwide. * * *
    • “CVS is the second national drugstore chain to partner with Grubhub, behind Rite Aid. Walgreens has also teamed up with Doordash and Uber to deliver medications and other health products.”
  • Per HR Dive,
    • “Business advocates and the U.S. Department of Labor can resume their fight over independent contractor regulations, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided Monday (Coalition v. Su).
    • “The litigation began after the Biden administration in 2021 nixed a Trump-era rule on the issue. Business groups challenged that withdrawal, arguing DOL overstepped its authority. A federal district court judge agreed, and the Biden administration appealed that ruling to the 5th Circuit. The appeals court issued a stay pending DOL’s publication of a new rule.
    • “Biden’s DOL finalized its own version of the regulations in January, with a March 11 effective date, leading the 5th Circuit to lift its stay Monday at the request of the business groups. The court also vacated the lower court’s opinion at DOL’s request, sending it back for the court to revisit.
    • “Considering this and other litigation related to the new regulations, a court could very well put the upcoming rules on hold, an employment law attorney told HR Dive last month; but with the effective date just weeks away, employers should monitor developments closely, he said.”

Midweek Update

David Ermer–Congress, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, Medicare, Mental health care, NIH, OPM, SDOH, Telehealth, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Manasvita S on Unsplash

From Washington, DC,

  • Politico reports,
    • “Congress is out of town this week and facing another government shutdown deadline with major health care implications.
    • “Lawmakers are confronted with two deadlines — March 1 for funding for the FDA and the VA and March 8 for HHS funding.
    • “It’s a key week for Congressional appropriators. How much progress they make now will determine whether lawmakers have to turn to another temporary spending package.
    • E”ven though Congress is away, negotiations continue, and key lawmakers are “encouraged” about the prospect of reaching a deal.
    • “But as POLITICO’s Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes report, there’s skepticism about whether the progress is being made quickly enough, according to sources familiar with the talks. Legislative text for some fiscal 2024 measures should ideally be finalized by this weekend to allow time for the Congressional Budget Office to pore over the bills and top lawmakers to calculate their next steps.”
  • Govexec offers a Kevin Moss article about OPM’s recent call letter for 2024 benefit and rate proposals for FEHB and PSHBP coverage. Bear in mind that the article does not appreciate the fact the Part D EGWP plans integrate Medicare and FEHB / PSHB coverage so that if Medicare does not cover a particular drug, like an obesity treatment, the FEHB / PSHB coverage will kick in.
  • FEDWeek discusses an OPM Inspector General report criticizing OPM’s FEHB disputed claims resolution process. The FEHBlog thinks that OPM does a good job with this process. Of course, any process can be improved but at what cost?
  • Healthcare Dive tells us,
    • “The CMS finalized a rule on Tuesday recalculating disproportionate share hospital payments, or reimbursements for hospitals serving a high proportion of low-income patients. Under the new definition, hospitals can only receive reimbursements for services rendered to beneficiaries for whom Medicaid is their primary insurer. 
    • “Congress tasked the CMS with clarifying DSH calculations in its Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. The final rule aims to reduce DSH overpayments by limiting hospitals’ ability to receive government and private payer funds for the same service, according to the rule.
    • I”n total, the CMS’ new calculations will result in an $8 billion reduction in DSH payments annually from fiscal year 2024 to 2027, according to the rule.” 
  • Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employee Benefit Security, Lisa Gomez, posted a blog entry about how to use your employer sponsored health benefits to improve heart health.
  • The Government Accountability Office issued a report on maternal health.
    • “Hundreds of women in the U.S. die each year from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth—a crisis exacerbated by COVID-19. The Department of Health and Human Services is working to address the crisis and meet long-term goals such as increasing women’s access to high-quality maternal care.
    • “As of September 2023, HHS hasn’t determined how it’ll measure progress toward achieving its maternal health goals. Following key performance measurement practices—such as setting near-term goals and establishing timeframes for results—would allow the agency to better understand if its efforts are effective. We recommended that HHS do so.”
  • The National Institutes of Health announced,
    • “launch[ing] a clinical trials network to evaluate emerging technologies for cancer screening. The Cancer Screening Research Network (CSRN) will support the Biden-Harris administration’s Cancer Moonshot℠ by investigating how to identify cancers earlier, when they may be easier to treat. Eight groups have received funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of NIH, to carry out the initial activities of the network.
    • “There are many cancers we still cannot reliably detect until it is so late that they become extremely difficult to treat,” said W. Kimryn Rathmell, M.D., Ph.D., director of NCI. “Emerging technologies such as multi-cancer detection tests could transform cancer screening and help to extend the lives of many more people. We need to be sure that these technologies work and understand how to use them so they benefit everyone.”
    • “Studies are needed, for example, to evaluate the benefits and harms of promising new technologies for cancer screening and to determine how best to incorporate these technologies into the standard of care.”
    • “In 2024, the network will launch a pilot study, known as the Vanguard Study on Multi-Cancer Detection, to address the feasibility of using multi-cancer detection (MCD) tests in future randomized controlled trials. MCDs are blood tests that can screen for several types of cancers. The study will enroll up to 24,000 people to inform the design of a much larger randomized controlled trial. This larger trial will evaluate whether the benefits of using MCD tests to screen for cancer outweigh the harms, and whether they can detect cancer early in a way that reduces deaths.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • KFF informs us,
    • The United States is knee-deep in what some experts call the opioid epidemic’s “fourth wave,” which is not only placing drug users at greater risk but is also complicating efforts to address the nation’s drug problem.
    • These waves, according to a report out today from Millennium Health, began with the crisis in prescription opioid use, followed by a significant jump in heroin use, then an increase in the use of synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
    • The latest wave involves using multiple substances at the same time, combining fentanyl mainly with either methamphetamine or cocaine, the report found. “And I’ve yet to see a peak,” said one of the co-authors, Eric Dawson, vice president of clinical affairs at Millennium Health, a specialty laboratory that provides drug testing services to monitor use of prescription medications and illicit drugs. * * *
    • Methamphetamine, a highly addictive drug often in powder form that poses several serious cardiovascular and psychiatric risks, was found in 60% of fentanyl-positive tests last year. That is an 875% increase since 2015. * * *
    • Among the report’s other key findings:
      • The nationwide spike in methamphetamine use alongside fentanyl marks a change in drug use patterns.
      • Polydrug use trends complicate overdose treatments. For instance, though naloxone, an opioid-overdose reversal medication, is widely available, there isn’t an FDA-approved medication for stimulant overdose.
      • Both heroin and prescribed opioid use alongside fentanyl have dipped. Heroin detected in fentanyl-positive tests dropped by 75% since peaking in 2016. Prescription opioids were found at historic low rates in fentanyl-positive tests in 2023, down 89% since 2013.
  • MedPage Today points out,
    • “Annual breast cancer screening at ages 40 to 79 resulted in the greatest reduction in mortality, according to a study comparing various screening scenarios.
    • “Using Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network (CISNET) estimates of breast cancer screening outcomes published in 2009, 2016, and 2023, mortality was reduced by 41.7% with annual screening starting at age 40 and continuing up to age 79, reported Debra L. Monticciolo, MD, of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and colleagues.”
  • AP reports,
    • “Emily Hollenbeck lived with a deep, recurring depression she likened to a black hole, where gravity felt so strong and her limbs so heavy she could barely move. She knew the illness could kill her. Both of her parents had taken their lives. 
    • “She was willing to try something extreme: Having electrodes implanted in her brain as part of an experimental therapy.
    • “Researchers say the treatment —- called deep brain stimulation, or DBS — could eventually help many of the nearly 3 million Americans like her with depression that resists other treatments. It’s approved for conditions such as Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, and many doctors and patients hope it will become more widely available for depression soon.”
  • Fierce Healthcare lets us know,
    • “Given the impact that social factors have on overall health, employers can better manage costs and outcomes by embracing deeper, population-level data analysis, according to a new white paper.
    • “UnitedHealthcare and the Health Action Council (HAC), a nonprofit that represents large and midsize employers, dug into community health data from HAC’s plan sponsors representing 217,779 workers. The analysis found that 52% of adults have at least one social determinant of health risk.
    • “Of that group, 10% faced three or more risks, and 16% had two risk factors. Twenty-six percent have one SDOH risk factor, according to the report.
    • “Craig Kurtzweil, chief data and analytics officer for UnitedHealthcare Employer and Individual, told Fierce Healthcare that the study “gives us a first of its kind sort of view of all the different variables that are impacting the health of various communities and employers.”
    • “As you dive a little bit further, it just becomes a bit remarkable how much of an impact those factors are making,” he said.”
  • Becker’s Hospital Review brings us up to date on prescription drug shortages.

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Healthcare Dive reports,
    • “St. Louis-based Ascension Healthcare brought in $231 million in operating income during its second quarter 2024 ended Dec. 31, compared to an operating loss of $291 million during the prior-year period.
    • “Ascension attributed its operational improvement in part to volume growth. Inpatient admissions increased 0.5% in thesix months ended Dec. 31, with same-facility admissions increasing 1.2% for the same period year over year.
    • “The health system said it slowed the pace of expense growth during the quarter. Total salaries, wages and benefits decreased $152 million in the six months ended Dec. 31, totaling $54.9 million for the quarter, as Ascension outsourced lab services and continued retention programs to reduce dependence on pricey staffing agencies.”
  • STAT News notes,
    • “DarioHealth, which makes apps for managing chronic diseases, today announced it will acquire digital mental health company Twill for $10 million in cash plus stock valued at over $20 million at the end of Tuesday trading. The move is a bet that a consolidated offering can attract a critical mass of large customers in a market where profits have been elusive.
    • “Founded in 2011, Dario started with a diabetes app targeted at consumers before expanding it to hypertension and weight management. It still maintains that direct-to-consumer business but has since shifted its focus to selling its suite of offerings, including a musculoskeletal care program it acquired in 2021, to health plans and employers in the hopes of reaching much larger patient populations. Recent updates aimed at making itself attractive to clients include a new offering built around popular, and expensive, GLP-1 weight loss drugs, and published real world data suggesting its tools can save clients money on downstream health care costs. With Twill, Dario adds a mental health app and related services, addressing a top demand of employers.”
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “Teladoc offered a weaker-than-expected forecast for 2024, projecting slower revenue growth as the telehealth market has become crowded with digital health players.
    • “The virtual care giant pulled in $661 million in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2024, up 4% from $638 million in the same period a year ago. Access fees revenue grew 4% to $574 million, and other revenue grew 3% to $87 million. U.S. revenue grew 2% to $565 million, and international revenue grew 15% to $96 million.
    • “The company’s BetterHelp virtual mental health business saw flat growth in the fourth quarter, bringing in $277 million. The weakness in BetterHelp sales was the result of lower direct-to-consumer marketing yield.
  • Beckers Payer Issues offers an interview with an Aetna Executive about the company’s Medicare Advantage business.
  • MedCity News calls our attention to a continuing interoperability problem.
    • “The healthcare industry has notoriously struggled with disconnected data systems and a lack of interoperability. When health information cannot be easily exchanged between different systems and providers, it leads to fragmented care, medical errors and delays in treatment — not to mention an incredible amount of frustration and inconvenience for both providers and patients.
    • “Software developers have been working hard in recent years to create tools and data sharing standards that foster a more cohesive and integrated approach. However, these tools have a serious adoption problem, experts said last week during a virtual panel held by Reuters Events.
    • “Alistair Erskine, Emory Healthcare’s chief information and digital officer, pointed out that most provider referrals are still done by fax, even though there are tools available to send them digitally. Most providers use EHRs that are able to pull a patient’s health information and transport it to the EHR of the new provider to whom they’ve been referred, he said.
    • “Despite data sharing standards like FHIR and DICOM — and despite “the fact that the data has already been digitized” — completing a provider referral is still not a smooth process, Erskine remarked. He stated that 98% of referrals are done by fax even though they could “of course” be done electronically.
    • “Even though the standards are there, we have to make sure that people safely log into their systems, and we have to make sure that people are able to find their patient in their systems. And if you navigate from one system to the next, that presents a barrier to entry. It’s easier to just take a piece of paper, write what you need and send it in a fax,” Erskine explained.”

Tuesday Tidbits

David Ermer–Congress, COVID-19, Medical / Rx research, Mental health care, NIH, No Surprises Act, Rx coverage, SDOH, Telehealth, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

From Washington, DC,

  • Beckers Health IT informs us,
    • “U.S. lawmakers introduced bipartisan legislation Feb. 16 to better match patients with their EHRs.
    • “U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., and Bill Foster, PhD, D-Ill., sponsored the Patient Matching and Transparency in Certified Health IT, or MATCH IT, Act of 2024.
    • “Patient matching errors have led to unnecessary expenses, medical mistakes, and even patient deaths,” Mr. Kelly said in a Feb. 16 news release. “This bipartisan legislation works to improve interoperability between healthcare systems and decrease these fixable matching errors, all while protecting patient privacy.”
  • STAT News tells us,
    • “Nearly four decades after its first conception, the first TIL therapy, an immunotherapy that harvests cancer-fighting immune cells from the patient’s own body, received accelerated approval from the Food and Drug Administration for advanced melanoma. The therapy, called Amtagvi or lifileucel from Iovance, is the first cell therapy approved for a solid tumor.
    • “It’s so exciting and gratifying,” said Allison Betof Warner, a cell therapy researcher and physician at Stanford University who has worked on Amtagvi. “This is a game-changing moment for our field. We’ve seen huge success of cellular therapy for hematologic malignancies, and we’ve yet to capitalize on that for solid tumors. This is hopefully the first of many to come.”
    • “In a Phase 2 clinical trial, titled C-144-01, 153 patients who had already been on a median of three prior lines of therapy received lifileucel, and 31% of them responded to therapy. “These are in very late line patients. They’ve exhausted every standard care option,” Betof Warner said. “The most promising part of this therapy for me is that 42% of patients who responded were still responding for 18 months or longer. It’s truly incredible.”
    • “The therapy is not expected to work for every patient, partially because the regimen has high toxicity. It will also be expensive. The therapy is expected to be priced at $515,000.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review adds, “Buzz for gene therapies is loud, but drugmakers struggle to get treatments off the ground.”
    • “A major barrier for many companies in the space is sheer cost to develop these advanced medical therapies. Though the Biden administration and CMS announced Jan. 30 plans to bring down prices for gene edited therapies, progress will take time. 
    • “The number of patients being treated with the existing gene therapies that are approved and available on the market is expected to decline year over year by nearly 33%, according to Bloomberg.”
  • Per the Food and Drug Administration,
    • “On Friday, the FDA published an Outbreak Advisory for an investigation of E. coli O157:H7 linked to raw cheddar cheese. The FDA recommends that consumers, restaurants, and retailers do not eat, sell, or serve Raw Farm-brand Raw Cheddar Cheese (block or shredded) and to throw it away. This is an ongoing investigation and the FDA will update the Advisory should additional consumer safety information become available.”
  • BioPharma Dive reports,
    • “AstraZeneca’s targeted cancer therapy Tagrisso can now be used alongside chemotherapy to treat a common type of locally advanced or metastatic lung tumor, following a Food and Drug Administration approval Friday.
    • “The FDA cleared Tagrisso together with chemotherapy based on results showing the combination reduced the risk of disease progression or death versus Tagrisso alone, which is currently the first-line standard for non-small cell lung cancer that harbors mutations in a gene known as EGFR.
    • “Over the weekend, meanwhile, AstraZeneca reported new clinical trial data showing Tagrisso outperformed placebo following chemoradiotherapy for Stage 3 EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer that couldn’t be surgically removed. The results, which AstraZeneca will share with regulators, could further support early use of Tagrisso.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • Axios points out,
    • “More than half of U.S. newborns now appear to be protected by new RSV vaccines, according to updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
    • “Why it matters: The virus is considered the second leading cause of death worldwide during the first year of a child’s life. The data suggests demand was strong despite broader vaccine skepticism and the potential for confusion over more childhood immunization options.”
  • The Wall Street Journal discusses a related RSV vaccine (Beyfortus) shortage — “A new antibody that protects babies from a deadly virus proved far more popular than drugmaker Sanofi expected.”
    • Beyfortus seller Sanofi in March last year set aggressive targets for how many doses to make, yet still underestimated demand. Some pediatricians delayed ordering immunizations because they didn’t know whether insurers would cover the $495 doses. And the U.S. government decided in August—months after Sanofi had locked in the number of doses it would make—to add the shot to the Vaccines for Children program, a federal initiative that covers children who are uninsured or on Medicaid, buying more than half of the doses.
    • Sanofi said it sought to distribute its shots equitably in the face of “unprecedented” demand and is working to increase supply for the next RSV season. 
  • HHS’s Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research issued a Medical Expenditure Panel Survey about “Characteristics of Young Adults Aged 18-24 Who Had Ever Used an Electronic Nicotine Product, 2021.”
    • “Nearly one-third (30.6 percent) of U.S. adults ages 18-24 reported ever having used an electronic nicotine product.
    • “More than one-third (38.3 percent) of non-Hispanic White young adults reported ever having used an electronic nicotine product, nearly double the rate for Hispanic young adults and 12 percentage points higher than for non-Hispanic Black young adults.”
  • Medpage Today notes,
    • “Nearly all medication abortions obtained via telehealth, whether via video or secure text messaging, were completed without further intervention and without adverse events, the prospective CHAT study found.
    • “Among over 6,000 abortions, 97.7% (95% CI 97.2-98.1) were completed without further intervention, and the completion rate was similar for patients who had video calls (98.3%) or used text messaging (97.4%), reported Ushma Upadhyay, PhD, MPH, of the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues.
    • “Less than 1% of patients had a serious abortion-related adverse event (0.25%) or were treated for an ectopic pregnancy (0.16%), and 1.3% of abortions were followed by emergency department visits, the authors wrote in Nature Medicine.”
  • The FEHBlog has subscribed to a Substack series called “Your Local Epidemiologist.”
    • “Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE)” is written by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, M.P.H. Ph.D.—an epidemiologist, wife, and mom of two little girls. During the day, she is a senior scientific consultant to several organizations, including CDC. At night, she writes this newsletter. Her main goal is to “translate” the ever-evolving public health world so that people will be well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members.”
    • Check it out.
  • Medpage Today offers an expert medical opinion concerning
    • “News surfaced last week suggesting a potential shift in COVID-19 isolation guidanceopens in a new tab or windowfrom the CDC. The planned guidance, which is expected to be released this spring for public comment, indicates a significant switch in how COVID-19 is conceptualized. The guidance would bring COVID-19 into line with how other common respiratory viruses are managed: with isolation recommended until the individual has mild and improving symptoms, and is fever-free (without pharmaceutical aid) for 24 hours.”
    • “With the news of the proposed guidance, many voices rose up to immediately attack the proposed guidance as a capitulation and not evidence-based. This was similar to the refrain from opponents when the federal or state governments dropped or loosened mask requirements or guidance.
    • “I was not one of themopens in a new tab or window.
    • “Indeed, I welcome the proposed guidance change because it reflects the progress that has been made in the management of COVID-19. When evaluating this guidance, it is critical to understand that SARS-CoV-2, the cause of COVID-19, is situated among the myriad respiratory viruses that infect humans.”
  • Medscape lets us know,
    • “Availability of telehealth services for mental healthcare varies widely from state to state, a new study shows. One fifth of all facilities contacted reported no mental telehealth options and wait times for those that did ranged from 4 days to > 2 months, depending on the state.”
  • The National Institutes of Health announced,
    • “To prevent an emerging genomic technology from contributing to health disparities, a scientific team funded by the National Institutes of Health has devised new ways to improve a genetic testing method called a polygenic risk score. Since polygenic risk scores have not been effective for all populations, the researchers recalibrated these genetic tests using ancestrally diverse genomic data. As reported in Nature Medicine, the optimized tests provide a more accurate assessment of disease risk across diverse populations.
    • “Genetic tests look at the small differences between individuals’ genomes, known as genomic variants, and polygenic risk scores are tools for assessing many genomic variants across the genome to determine a person’s risk for disease. As the use of polygenic risk scores grows, one major concern is that the genomic datasets used to calculate the scores often heavily overrepresent people of European ancestry.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Healthcare Dive reports,
    • “After federal legislation protecting consumers from surprise medical bills was implemented, a growing number of medical claims were in network, according to a new analysis.
    • “The No Surprises Act went into effect on Jan. 1, 2022. From the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, in-network care as a percentage of all claim lines nationally increased 2.3%, according to the study by nonprofit Fair Health.
    • “It’s the latest research suggesting No Surprises has been successful in lowering the amount of unexpected out-of-network bills, though the rollout of the law has been tied up in lawsuits, and regulators currently face a backlog of billing disputes between payers and providers.”
  • and
    • “Insurers brace for continued Medicare Advantage medical costs. The big question coming out of the health insurance earnings season is how much elevated utilization among seniors is carrying over into 2024.”
  • EndPoint News points out,
    • “Cigna’s venture unit just made a bet on a startup focused on cardiometabolic conditions that wants to play a role in prescribing GLP-1 medications.
    • “9amHealth said on Tuesday it raised $9.5 million in a Series A extension led by The Cigna Group Ventures. It adds to $16 million from the Series A raised in April 2022 by the startup, which provides virtual visits, prescriptions and lab tests related to conditions like hypertension, type 2 diabetes and weight management.”
    • “Cigna’s investment comes as health plans and pharmacy benefit managers (the PBM Express Scripts is a subsidiary of Cigna) are grappling with how to cover the high cost of GLP-1 medications for conditions like type 2 diabetes and weight loss. It’s among the first investments from an insurance company’s venture arm into a startup prescribing the drugs, which have turned into huge blockbusters and prompted broad conversations about their cost — and benefit — to the healthcare system.”
  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “Pharmaceutical companies are spending billions of dollars to develop drugs that can target cancer like guided missiles.
    • “Therapies known as antibody-drug conjugates, which help deliver chemotherapy directly to tumors, have gotten most of the attention and are farthest along: 
    • “Pfizer’s $43 billion acquisition of biotech Seagen Inc. last year underscored how hot the field has become. 
    • “More quietly, a concept known as radiopharmaceuticals is also gaining ground. In recent months, interest in this space has led to a rise in dealmaking. The idea is similar to ADCs in that a patient receives an old treatment—in this case, a radioactive particle instead of chemotherapy drugs—but it is bound with a molecule that can chase down tumor cells. The technology is at a more nascent stage, but a steady growth of venture capital money and acquisitions by large pharmaceutical companies means this could well become a key part of the fight against cancer in the next decade or so.”
  • HR Dive discusses an EEOC lawsuit against a Georgia retirement community “for firing a 78-year-old receptionist after repeatedly asking her to retire. “The right to decide a retirement age lies with an employee, not their employer,” an EEOC official said.

Happy Presidents’ Day

David Ermer–CDC, Congress, COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccine, Obesity, Rx coverage, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC

From the public health and medical research front,

  • ABC News reports,
    • “Half of all states are seeing high levels of respiratory virus activity, new federal data updated Friday shows.
    • “Currently, 25 states plus New York City and Washington, D.C., are experiencing “high” or “very high” levels of respiratory illness activity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
    • “While this is higher than the 23 states experiencing “high” or “very high” activity levels last week, it is fewer than the peak of 38 states reporting “high’ or ‘very high’ levels the week ending Dec. 30. * * *
    • “Adults over age 65 continue to have the highest rates of both COVID and flu hospitalizations.”
  • Fortune Well informs us,
    • “Vaccines that protect against severe illness, death and lingering long Covid symptoms from a coronavirus infection were linked to small increases in neurological, blood, and heart-related conditions in the largest global vaccine safety study to date.
    • “The rare events — identified early in the pandemic — included a higher risk of heart-related inflammation from mRNA shots made by Pfizer Inc., BioNTechSE, and Moderna Inc., and an increased risk of a type of blood clot in the brain after immunization with viral-vector vaccines such as the one developed by the University of Oxford and made by AstraZeneca Plc. 
    • “The viral-vector jabs were also tied to an increased risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the peripheral nervous system.”
  • and
    • “They say anything men can do, women can do better—which may include reaping the health benefits of regular exercise. That’s according to a new study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
    • “An international team of researchers from the U.S. and China showed that women who exercise regularly have a significantly lower risk of an early death or a fatal cardiovascular event than men who do the same. On top of that, the advantage holds true even when women put in less effort.
    • “The observational study, which analyzed the exercise habits of more than 400,000 U.S. adults, found that compared to being inactive, engaging in regular physical activity lowered women’s mortality risk by 24%. Men saw a 15% reduction in risk.
    • “Women who worked out also had a 36% reduced risk of a fatal cardiovascular event, such as a stroke or heart attack, than their inactive peers. Among men, those who were physically active showed a 14% reduced risk.”
  • The Washington Post reports,
    • “About 1 in 4 U.S. adults 65 and older — more than 14 million people — suffer a fall each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
    • “Falls are the leading cause of injury among those 65 and older, even though not all falls result in an injury, the CDC says. About 37 percent of older people who have fallen have sustained an injury that required medical treatment or activity restrictions. For instance, the CDC reports that 95 percent of hip fractures result from a fall, and falls also are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries.
    • “The National Institute on Aging notes that the odds of falling increase with age, but falls often can be prevented. Standard suggestions include fall-proofing your home space (making sure all stairs have hand rails and are well-lit, eliminating most throw rugs and keeping walk spaces clutter-free), careful management of medications (especially those that can cause dizziness or confusion), having regular vision checks and staying as active as possible (including doing exercises to maintain strength and balance).”
  • STAT News tells us,
    • “Niacin, or vitamin B3, has long been a U.S. public health darling to the point that it is added, by law, to cereal products. But a new study published Monday in Nature Medicine points to a potentially concerning effect of an excess of the vitamin: It may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
    • “The study looked into two cohorts of patients without active heart disease, 60% of whom were treated with statins, and found a strong association between a metabolic product of excess niacin and an increased risk of major adverse cardiovascular events such as a heart attack or stroke. One in four of the people in the study had excess niacin, which doubled their risk of major cardiovascular events to levels comparable with diabetes or a previous heart attack.
    • “It’s a fairly sizable risk. It’s on par with what we consider other large risks,” said Stanley Hazen, the section head of preventive cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation at the Cleveland Clinic and senior author of the study. “This opens up the door; it lays the foundation for new studies and new interventions from both a diagnostic and therapeutic perspective to try to reduce inflammation and cardiovascular disease.”
  • Per Medscape,
    • “A plant-based diet, low in dairy and meat but rich in fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts, can improve sexual and urinary health in patients treated for local prostate cancer, new research showed.
    • “The findings, published on February 13, 2024, in the journal Cancer, bolster previous research showing plant-based diets can reduce the risk for recurrence and improve survivorship in men with prostate cancer.
    • “The current study shows for the first time an association between eating more plant-based food with better scores for quality of life among patients diagnosed with prostate cancer,” Stacy Loeb, MD, a urologist in the Departments of Urology and Population Health at NYU Langone Health, in New York City, who led the research.”
  • and
    • Cefepime-taniborbactam was 22% more effective than meropenem, which is a current treatment for complicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) and acute pyelonephritis, according to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

From the healthcare business front,

  • The Wall Street Journal reports,
    • “China has more obese people than anywhere else in the world, and they are increasingly turning to weight-loss drugs to solve the problem.
    • “That is fueling a gray market of drug sellers and buyers, who have little trouble getting around China’s rules on the use of Ozempic. 
    • “Ozempic isn’t available for weight loss in the country, instead being reserved for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. But users on e-commerce platforms are able to buy the shots, colloquially known as “miracle drugs,” simply by declaring they have been diagnosed with diabetes—without providing proof. 
    • “They aren’t getting a bad deal: On JD.com, a dosage of Ozempic retails for around $139. That is higher than its cost on the country’s national-insurance plan but much cheaper than the $970 some users pay in the U.S. each month. JD.com didn’t respond to requests for comment.”
  • NPR Shots notes,
    • “Bayer is the latest name-brand drugmaker to dip its toe into the world of Mark Cuban’s online pharmacy, Cost Plus Drugs. 
    • “The website offers drugs at steep discounts bypassing middlemen called pharmacy benefit managers. It mostly sells generics, but has been slowly adding brand name products as well. 
    • “Yaz birth control pills and Climara, a hormone patch for menopause, will both now be available for a fraction of their list prices, including Cost Plus’s standard 15% markup and shipping.
    • “As I look at our partnership with Cost Plus, I really look at this as a test and learn,” says Sebastian Guth, president of U.S. Pharmaceuticals at Bayer. “It’s a first initial step. We will learn and see what the results of this partnership are and may then decide to expand it further.”
  • Beckers Payer Issues points out,
    • “Some health systems are getting out of the insurance business. 
    • “In the first weeks of 2024, two health systems announced plans to sell their health insurance subsidiaries. In February, Springfield, Mass.-based Baystate Health reached a deal to sell Health New England to Point32Health. 
    • “In January, Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica said it planned to sell its insurance subsidiary, Paramount Health, to Medical Mutual of Ohio. 
    • “Baystate Health has around 180,000 members in Medicare, Medicaid and commercial, and Paramount Health has more than 77,000 members in Medicare Advantage, commercial, individual and short-term plans. Both are set to be acquired by larger nonprofit insurers. Point32Health and Medical Mutual of Ohio each have over 1 million members.” 

Midweek Update

David Ermer–Congress, OPM, Rx coverage, SDOH, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Manasvita S on Unsplash

From Washington, DC

  • The American Hospital Association News reports,
    • “The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health Feb. 14 held a hearing on AHA-supported legislation to reauthorize through 2029 the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act (H.R. 7153), which provides grants to help health care organizations offer behavioral health services for front-line health care workers. The bill also would reauthorize a national campaign that provides hospital leaders with evidence-based solutions to support worker well-being. Without congressional action, the law will expire at the end of this year.  
    • “Among other measures, the hearing highlighted legislation (H.R. 6960) to reauthorize the Emergency Medical Services for Children Program, which provides funding for equipment and training to help hospitals and paramedics treat pediatric emergencies. AHA advocated for funding the program at $28 million for fiscal year 2024.”
  • According to HHS press releases,
    • “On Wednesday, February 14, 2024, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra and leaders from across HHS met with state leaders and representatives from the National Governors Association (NGA) to announce the launch of HHS Secretary’s Postpartum Maternal Health Collaborative. The six states that have agreed to participate in the Postpartum Maternal Health Collaborative are Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico.
    • “This new collaborative seeks to bring together state experts, local providers, community partners, and federal experts to develop a better understanding of the challenges being experienced among the postpartum population and support new solutions that will improve postpartum mortality. In conjunction with this new HHS collaborative, the National Governors Association launched their Improving Maternal and Child Health in Rural America State and Territory Policy Learning Collaborative. This new initiative will focus on implementing policy changes to improve maternal and child health outcomes in rural America.”
  • and
  • and
  • Meritalk adds,
    • “The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) today released its 2023 Equity Action Plan, which spotlights data as a tool to better understand barriers and advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in the Federal workforce.
    • “OPM plans to advance the equitable participation of Federal employees in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program by conduct a mixed methods study that will access and analyze data to identify barriers and potential solutions to accessing health benefits.”
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • “The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new regimen for pancreatic cancer, clearing Ipsen’s Onivyde to be used with chemotherapy in treating recently diagnosed metastatic tumors, the company announced Tuesday.
    • “Onivyde, which Ipsen bought from Merrimack Pharmaceuticals seven years ago, has been available for second-line use in pancreatic cancer, after tumor progression. The new OK will give physicians the option to use it earlier.
    • “The FDA’s decision was based on results from a Phase 3 trial Ipsen ran involving 770 people with metastatic pancreatic cancer. The data showed that Onivyde plus the chemo regimen FOLFOX improved survival and delayed tumor progression for longer than a combination of the drugs Abraxane and gemcitabine.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review informs us,
    • “On Feb. 14, the FDA approved Aurlumyn, the nation’s first treatment for severe frostbite. 
    • “Severe frostbite, which is estimated to affect 1% of the general population, happens when the skin and underlying tissue are frozen and blood flow is stopped. Aurlumyn (iloprost) is an injection that works by opening blood vessels, preventing blood from clotting.
    • “The skin damage from severe frostbite sometimes requires finger and toe amputations. In a trial of 47 patients, a bone scan after one week predicted that zero of the 16 study participants who received iloprost alone would need an amputation, compared to 3 of the 16 who received the drug with another experimental frostbite therapy and 9 of 15 who received another unapproved therapy alone. 
    • “Actelion Pharmaceuticals US received the drug approval.” 
  • STAT News tells us,
    • “An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration voted in favor of a new device from Abbott meant to treat patients with tricuspid heart valve disease. All but one of the 14 panelists said the treatment’s benefits outweighed its risks. The FDA tends to follow advisory panel recommendations.
    • “If we can help symptoms with this at a low cost in terms of risk, I think it makes a lot of sense,” said James Blankenship, a panelist and cardiologist at the University of New Mexico. 
    • “The device is called the TriClip, and it addresses a disease called tricuspid regurgitation: a heart condition that causes blood to leak backward through the tricuspid heart valve. The condition impacts 1.6 million people in the United States. Symptoms include fatigue, swelling, and atypical heart rhythms. In severe cases, the condition can lead to heart failure. 
    • “Current treatment options are drugs to reduce extra fluids or correct heart rhythm, or in more serious cases, surgery to correct the valve. Abbott hopes to cater to patients for whom medications are ineffective and surgery is too risky. The device, which clips together the disparate parts of the valve, is delivered via a catheter rather than open heart surgery.” 
  • Per an HHS press release,
    • “Today the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) jointly issued a Request for Information to understand how the practices of two types of pharmaceutical drug middlemen groups—group purchasing organizations (GPOs) and drug wholesalers—may be contributing to generic drug shortages.
    • “In the Request for Information (RFI) – PDF, the FTC and HHS are seeking public comment regarding market concentration among large health care GPOs and drug wholesalers, as well as information detailing their contracting practices. The joint RFI seeks to understand how both GPOs and drug wholesalers impact the overall generic pharmaceutical market, including how both entities may influence the pricing and availability of pharmaceutical drugs. The joint RFI is asking these questions to help uncover the root causes and potential solutions to drug shortages.”
  • Per Govexec,
    • “Last December, lawmakers included a new provision in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act clarifying that “honorable” active duty military service will count toward the FMLA’s eligibility requirements, and in turn to the federal workforce’s paid parental leave benefit.
    • “In a memo to agency heads Tuesday, OPM Director Kiran Ahuja outlined how federal agencies should implement the tweak. Specifically, federal employees whose military service would put them over a year of federal service should “immediately” become eligible for the two forms of leave, dating back to Dec. 22, 2023, the day President Biden signed the NDAA into law.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The National Institutes of Health explains,
    • “Women who receive an mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination or booster during pregnancy can provide their infants with strong protection against symptomatic COVID-19 infection for at least six months after birth, according to a study from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. These findings, published in Pediatrics(link is external), reinforce the importance of receiving both a COVID-19 vaccine and booster during pregnancy to ensure that infants are born with robust protection that lasts until they are old enough to be vaccinated.
    • “COVID-19 is especially dangerous for newborns and young infants, and even healthy infants are vulnerable to COVID-19 and are at risk for severe disease. No COVID-19 vaccines currently are available for infants under six months old. Earlier results from the Multisite Observational Maternal and Infant COVID-19 Vaccine (MOMIv-Vax) study revealed that when pregnant volunteers received both doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, antibodies induced by the vaccine could be found in their newborns’ cord blood. This suggested that the infants likely had some protection against COVID-19 when they were still too young to receive a vaccine. However, researchers at the NIAID-funded Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium (IDCRC), which conducted the study, did not know how long these antibody levels would last or how well the infants would actually be protected. The research team hoped to gather this information by following the infants through their first six months of life.”
  • STAT News lets us know,
    • “Public health messages have told us for decades that if you smoke, you should quit. And if you don’t smoke, don’t start. But a new study suggests smoking may be even worse than we thought.
    • “The study, published Wednesday in Nature, underscores the importance of never lighting up that first cigarette, based on its conclusion that smoking has much longer harmful effects on immune responses than previously understood.
    • “People who quit smoking soon regained normal function of their immune system’s power to mount fast and general innate responses to bacteria or viruses. But researchers also found that slower, more targeted adaptive T cell defenses remembered from past pathogens did not come back so soon after that last cigarette.
    • “We could see that the effect of active smoking on inflammatory responses to bacterial stimulation were lost when individuals quit smoking,” senior study author Darragh Duffy of the Institut Pasteur said about the innate response on a call with reporters. “In contrast, the effect on the T cell response was maintained for many years after the individuals quit smoking.”
  • STAT News further reports
    • “The HPV vaccine is a success story in some countries, including the U.K., where it beat estimates of how long it would take to nearly eliminate cervical cancer, the disease it is designed to prevent, among young women. And that was more than two years ago. Last month, a study in Scotland found no cases of cervical cancer in women who were vaccinated before age 14. In the U.S., it’s still a work in progress. A CDC report out today tells us that 39% of children age 9 to 17 had received at least one dose of the HPV vaccine, with rates rising with age from 7% in the youngest kids  to 57% in the oldest. Some differences in who got vaccinated:
      • “By insurance: Private health insurance (42%), Medicaid (37%), other government coverage (30%), and no insurance (21%).
      • “By neighborhood: Large central metropolitan areas (4o%), large fringe metropolitan areas (41%), and medium and small metropolitan areas (39%), and nonmetropolitan areas (30%).” 

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Fierce Healthcare points out,
    • “Elevance Health’s $2.5 billion acquisition of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana is on pause yet again amid concerns about the impact on competition.
    • “BCBSLA posted a statement on its website Wednesday, saying that while the insurer wants to find a “strong partner” that can support it into the future, the team has also heard the skepticism in the Pelican State.
    • “We continue to hear from our stakeholders that they want Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana to remain their trusted partner in their healthcare journey, and we pursued this transaction to help us do exactly that — by changing for the better,” the insurer said. “However, it is clear that our stakeholders need more time and information to understand the benefits of the changes we have proposed.”
    • “This is why we have decided to again pause the process in our proposed transaction with Elevance Health,” BCBSLA said.”
  • BioPharma Dive notes,
    • “Sage Therapeutics said its new medicine, the first oral treatment for postpartum depression, is off to an encouraging start, with signs of demand from prescribing doctors.
    • “Sage and partner Biogen began selling the drug, Zurzuvae, in mid-December and on Wednesday Sage shared the first data from an estimated 10 days when doctors’ offices were open at the end of the month. During that time, physicians wrote about 120 prescriptions for the drug and 50 prescriptions were shipped and delivered to patients.”

Tuesday Tidbits

David Ermer–CDC, Congress, COVID-19, Federal employment benefits, Medical / Rx research, Mental health care, Obesity, OPM–
Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

From Washington, DC

  • STAT News reports
    • “Lawmakers are considering increasing doctors’ Medicare pay in an upcoming government funding package, but their policy would only partially offset cuts providers saw earlier this year, three lobbyists and two sources familiar with the talks told STAT.
    • “Physicians’ groups have agitated for Congress to undo a roughly 3.4% Medicare pay cut this year, resulting from the expiration of pandemic-era bonuses lawmakers chose to give the industry.
    • “The cut went into effect on Jan. 1, but a fix hasn’t entirely fallen off of the agenda. A pay increase was discussed in negotiations over a stopgap funding bill earlier this year.
    • “There are more questions than answers at this point in negotiations. It’s unclear what the exact pay increase could be, when it could be passed, and how it could be paid for. The fate of legislation to fund the government is uncertain, too. But the five sources made it clear that an effort to completely offset the 3.4% cut is now off the table.”
  • The New York Times reports,
    • “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering loosening its recommendations regarding how long people should isolate after testing positive for the coronavirus, another reflection of changing attitudes and norms as the pandemic recedes.
    • “Under the proposed guidelines, Americans would no longer be advised to isolate for five days before returning to work or school. Instead, they might return to their routines if they have been fever free for at least 24 hours without medication, the same standard applied to the influenza and respiratory syncytial viruses.
    • “The proposal would align the C.D.C.’s advice with revised isolation recommendations in Oregon and California. The shift was reported earlier by The Washington Post, but it is still under consideration, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
    • “The C.D.C. last changed its policy on isolation in late 2021, when it scaled down the recommended period to five days from 10. If adopted, the new approach would signal that Covid has taken a place alongside other routine respiratory infections.”
  • The Federal Times tells us,
    • “The federal employee retirement backlog shot back up in January, snapping a four-month streak of steadily shrinking caseloads and indicating the government still has trouble getting a handle on its system for processing annuities.
    • “Nearly 13,000 people applied for retirement in January, matching the usual record-high number the Office of Personnel Management receives at the beginning of each calendar year. Traditionally, the retirement claims surge culminates in winter and case workers work through it well into spring.
    • “Last month, the Office of Personnel Management processed roughly 6,400 cases while intaking almost twice that. The overall inventory was 46% higher in January than December. And while processing times again improved last month after steadily quickening, it remains to be seen how the influx will impact speeds in the coming months.
    • “Despite the increases, fewer employees overall retired in 2023 than 2022, 2021 and 2020.”
  • The Society for Human Resource Management lets us know,
    • “Inflation fell in January to 3.1 percent year-over-year, missing some economists’ estimates that it would fall below 3 percent for the first time in nearly three years. 
    • “The Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all items rose 3.1 percent for the 12 months ending in January, before seasonal adjustment, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported today. That’s down from the unadjusted 3.4 percent annual gain seen in December—and a significant improvement from the 9.1 percent high notched in June 2022. 
    • “Core inflation—which accounts for all items minus food and energy—rose 3.9 percent over the past 12 months, the same for the 12 months ending in December.” 

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The New York Times reports,
    • “Women who develop high blood pressure or diabetes in the course of pregnancy are more likely to give birth to children who develop conditions that may compromise their own heart health at a young age, scientists reported on Monday.
    • “By the time they are 12 years old, these children are more likely to be overweight or to be diagnosed with high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood sugar, compared with children whose mothers had complication-free pregnancies.
    • “The research underscores the strong association between healthy pregnancies and child health, though the study stops short of proving a cause-and-effect relationship. The conclusions also offer support for the “fetal origins of adult disease” hypothesis, which suggests that many chronic conditions may have roots in fetal adaptations to the uterine environment.”
  • The American Hospital News points out,
    • “Syphilis infections during pregnancy more than tripled between 2016 and 2022 to 280 cases per 100,000 births, ranging from 46 per 100,000 in Maine to 763 per 100,000 in South Dakota, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Feb. 13. Rates doubled in seven states and grew fivefold in six states: New Mexico, Colorado, Mississippi, South Dakota, Montana and Alaska. Rates increased across all racial/ethnic and age groups, with the highest rates in mothers who were American Indian and Alaska Native, under age 25 and had no prenatal care.
    • “According to a CDC report last November, over 3,700 mothers passed the infection onto their babies in 2022, 10 times more than in 2012, although timely testing and treatment could prevent most mothers from transmitting the infection to their babies. Congenital syphilis can cause adverse pregnancy outcomes such as fetal and neonatal death, low birthweight, preterm birth, and brain and nerve disorders.”
  • The Wall Street Journal notes,
    • “At a biomedical center here, there’s a man scarfing down Frosted Flakes and tater tots while hooked up to an IV. His job? To help the government figure out what you should eat.
    • “That man, Kevin Elizabeth, a 28-year-old tech worker, is one of 500 Americans who will be living at scientific facilities around the country for six weeks, eating precisely selected meals and undergoing hundreds of medical tests. He is part of a new study, costing $189 million, that is one of the most ambitious nutrition research projects the National Institutes of Health has ever undertaken. * * *
    • “If all goes according to plan, in a few years you’ll be able to walk into your doctor’s office, get a few simple medical tests, answer questions about your health and lifestyle, and receive personalized diet advice, says Holly Nicastro, coordinator for the NIH’s Nutrition for Precision Health study.”
  • On the flip side, MedPage Today explains,
    • “Gastric bypass surgery in people with severe obesity was associated with sustained improvements in cognitive function, inflammation, and comorbidities, according to results of a cohort study in the Netherlands.
    • “At 2 years post-surgery, neuropsychological tests showed improvements of 20% or higher in global cognition (43% of patients), ability to shift attention (40%), episodic memory (32%), verbal fluency (24%), and working memory (11%), reported Amanda J. Kiliaan, PhD, of Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and colleagues.
    • “Lower inflammation and adipokine secretion, remission of comorbidities, higher physical activity, and better mood” may have played a role in the sustained improvement in global cognition for that subset of patients, the researchers suggested in JAMA Network Open.”
  • The Washington Post illuminates “How D.C.’s first sobering center could ease drug and alcohol addiction. The facility, part of the District’s response to a worsening opioid epidemic, exceeded 1,000 admissions in just over three months since it opened late last year.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Per a Cigna press release,
    • “Cigna Healthcare, the health benefits division of The Cigna Group (NYSE: CI), and HelloFresh*, the world’s leading meal kit company, announce an exclusive collaboration to offer discounted access to HelloFresh’s wholesome, affordable meals to as many as 12 million Cigna Healthcare customers through their employers. The two companies will also team up to support HelloFresh’s Meals with Meaning program, a social impact initiative that provides free meal kits for individuals experiencing food insecurity in local communities.
    • “Business leaders recognize that healthy employees mean a healthy business, and by expanding access to affordable, healthy meals, employers can better cultivate a stronger workforce,” said Heather Dlugolenski, U.S. commercial strategy officer, Cigna Healthcare. “We’re proud to team up with HelloFresh to support the health and vitality of America’s workforce and to make a difference for communities in need.”
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • Chronic care provider Omada Health is expanding its GLP-1 program to better care for patients interested in maintaining weight loss progress while discontinuing usage of the drugs.
    • For patients prescribed to GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, up to 40% of the weight loss can be due to loss of muscle mass. Omada is building upon its weight management solution to help users regain muscle throughout a member’s journey and when the drug is no longer utilized, a solution that would improve health outcomes and allow patients to not stray far from weight-related goals. Members of Omada’s cardiometabolic programs can benefit from the expanded care track, the company said.
  • and
    • “Zocdoc has launched a new guided search to help patients choose and book the right provider with greater confidence. 
    • “The guided search function on the healthcare marketplace and appointment booking platform offers a more tailored set of results based on patients’ unique care needs. When a patient searches for a provider, they are presented with an optional questionnaire to help better understand their symptoms and the type of treatment being sought. The goal is to take the guesswork out of which provider is the best fit.
    • “This search function can also help patients discover more about a provider’s scope of practice and helps providers ensure the patient is a good fit, Zocdoc said. A broad spectrum of specialties have the function available.”
  • Beckers Hospital Review notes,
    • CVS’ Aetna will begin offering in-home care services to its Medicare Advantage members with chronic kidney disease. 
    • Aetna has partnered with Monogram Health, a provider of in-home care management services, according to a Feb. 13 LinkedIn post from Monogram. Under the partnership, Monogram nurse practitioners will provide in-home and virtual specialty provider appointments to eligible Aetna members. 

Happy Lincoln’s Birthday!

David Ermer–CDC, Congress, FDA, Generative AI, Medical / Rx research, SDOH, U.S. Healthcare–

Our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, was born on February 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Kentucky.  RIP.

From Washington, DC,

  • The Federal Times reports,
    • “By the second week in February lawmakers are supposed to be busy picking apart the White House’ budget request with an eye towards policy debates in coming months. But the process hasn’t worked that way in recent years.
    • “Administration officials earlier this month announced their fiscal 2025 budget proposal would arrive more than a month late — on March 11 — marking the fourth consecutive year that Biden has missed the statutory deadline for a spending plan in early February.”
  • Federal News Network explains,
    • “For decades, Federal Executive Boards have been at the forefront of bridging together the nationwide federal workforce. Stretching from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Boston, Massachusetts — Seattle, Washington, to South Florida, and many places in between, FEBs have a large network already underway. Even so, recent changes to the decades-old program will refresh how FEBs function moving forward.
    • “Federal News Network has spent months connecting with FEB leaders all across the country to learn more about what they do, the impact they have had in their local areas, and their plans in store for the future. Over the next week, we’ll be focusing on four different regions of the country — one per day:
    • “Eastern Region (Feb. 12) | Southern Region (Feb. 13) | Central Region (Feb. 14) | Western Region (Feb. 15).”
    • Check it out.
  • According to this press release,
    • “The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), announced today that two additional organizations—CommonWell Health Alliance and Kno2—have been designated as Qualified Health Information Networks™ (QHINs™) capable of nationwide health data exchange governed by the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common AgreementSM (TEFCASM). ONC has led a multi-year, public-private process alongside its Recognized Coordinating Entity®, The Sequoia Project, Inc., to implement TEFCA, which was envisioned by the 21st Century Cures Act to support nationwide interoperability. TEFCA became operational in December 2023 with the designation of the first five QHINs—eHealth Exchange, Epic Nexus, Health Gorilla, KONZA, and MedAllies.
    • “CommonWell Health Alliance and Kno2 can immediately begin supporting the exchange of data under the Common Agreement’s policies and technical requirements along with the other designated QHINs. QHINs are the pillars of TEFCA network-to-network exchange, providing shared services and governance to securely route queries, responses, and messages across networks for health care stakeholders including patients, providers, hospitals, health systems, payers, and public health agencies.”
  • STAT News reports,
    • “A federal district judge [in Austin, Texas] on Monday granted the Biden administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Medicare’s new drug price negotiation program from the drug industry lobbying organization PhRMA. * * *
    • “However this [decision] wasn’t about the substance of those groups’ arguments. The Texas judge dismissed one of the co-plaintiffs, the National Infusion Center Association, from the case because it didn’t have subject matter jurisdiction to bring the lawsuit. And because NICA was the only party to the lawsuit in Texas, the whole case got tossed.
    • “That means the Biden administration still has to brace for battles in Washington D.C., New Jersey, and Delaware, where a judge recently heard arguments in an AstraZeneca suit against the negotiation plan.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • MedPage Today points out,
    • “Blood protein profiles predicted future dementia in healthy adults, a large longitudinal study showed.
    • “Blood samples from over 50,000 people in the U.K. Biobank showed that four proteins — glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light (NfL), growth differentiation factor-15 (GDF-15), and latent-transforming growth factor beta-binding protein 2 (LTBP2) — consistently were associated with subsequent all-cause dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, or vascular dementia over 14 years, according to Jin-Tai Yu, MD, PhD, of Fudan University in Shanghai, and co-authors.”
  • The Hill reports,
    • A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the rate of preterm births rose by 12 percent nationally between 2014 and 2022. 
    • Manisha Gandhi, chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Clinical Practice Guidelines Committee, told The Hill’s Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech that several factors could be at play. 
    • “We are seeing more patients with obesity, higher risks for hypertension or preeclampsia … seeing more diabetes,” Gandhi said. “Potentially some of those risk factors that lead to earlier delivery could be playing a role.” 
    • Environmental factors such as exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals and air pollution may also be contributing to the rise in preterm births. 
  • The Wall Street Journal lets us know,
    • “Uterine is the only cancer for which survival has fallen in the past four decades, the American Cancer Society said. The disease will kill some 13,250 women in the U.S. this year, the group estimates, surpassing ovarian cancer to become the deadliest gynecologic cancer. 
    • “Case rates have been increasing by about 1% annually over the past decade, with steeper rises for Black and Hispanic women. Rising obesity rates are partly to blame because excess weight increases estrogen levels that can fuel the cancer, researchers said. And fewer women are getting their uteruses removed to treat abnormal bleeding or noncancerous fibroids, leaving them exposed to the risk cancer develops in the organ as they age.
    • “But those factors alone don’t explain the rise. The disease, more common after menopause, is rising across age groups including in women under 50 for reasons that aren’t completely clear. * * *
    • “Uterine cancer, also called endometrial cancer, comes in two forms. The more common one is slow-growing, linked to elevated estrogen levels, and curable when caught early. The rarer type isn’t hormonal and is harder to treat. Cases of this more aggressive kind are increasing faster and driving rising death rates. 
    • “Chemical hair straighteners have been linked to uterine cancer risk. The Food and Drug Administration plans in July to propose a ban on formaldehyde in hair straightening or smoothing products. 
    • “I don’t think it’s just hair products, sadly,” said Dr. Premal Thaker, a gynecologic surgeon at Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis. “There’s more diabetes, more obesity, and there’s probably something else that we just don’t know.” 
  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “An “overwhelming” 88% of respondents reporting healthcare discrimination in a new screening initiative were Black, according to a new Humana study.
    • “The report focused on the structural determinants of health as opposed to the more common social determinants of health. While such social determinants center on the conditions in which people live, work, play, learn and worship, structural determinants focus on the economic and social experiences and policies that influence health such as discrimination and health literacy. Both social and structural determinants are often interrelated, according to the study authors. 
    • “The study, published in the American Journal of Managed Care, is the first of its kind by a U.S. insurer to focus on the structural determinants of health, aspects which are “critical” but often overlooked, Humana said.
    • “The healthcare discrimination finding was somewhat problematic given a small sample size and how exactly to frame and ask questions but was nevertheless quite instructive, said co-author J. Nwando Olayiwola, M.D., chief health equity officer and senior vice president at Humana.” 
  • According to an NIH press release,
    • “Scientists have identified an area within the brain’s frontal cortex that may coordinate an animal’s response to potentially traumatic situations. Understanding where and how neural circuits involving the frontal cortex regulate such functions, and how such circuits could malfunction, may provide insight about their role in trauma-related and stress-related psychiatric disorders in people. The study, led by scientists at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), a part of the National Institutes of Health, was published in Nature.
    • “Experiencing traumatic events is often at the root of trauma-related and stress-related psychiatric conditions, including alcohol use disorder (AUD),” said the study’s senior author, Andrew Holmes, Ph.D., senior investigator in NIAAA’s Laboratory of Behavioral and Genomic Neuroscience. “Additionally, witnessing others experience traumatic events can also contribute to these disorders.”
  • MedPage Today explains how patients are using artificial intelligence tools.
    • “It’s no secret that patients have been using Dr. Google for years. The introduction of ChatGPT is ushering in a new era. ChatGPT and other types of artificial intelligence have their drawbacks. Still, they can offer a range of benefits to healthcare providers and patients alike.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Per Fierce Healthcare,
    • “Kaiser Permanente wrapped up its fiscal year with $329 million of operating income (0.3% operating income), net income of $4.1 billion and more than $100 billion in both operating revenues and expenses, the Oakland, California-based nonprofit announced Feb. 9.
    • “The rebound performance follows sizable losses during 2022, when the system logged a $1.3 billion operating loss (-1.3% operating income) off of $95.4 billion in operating revenues and $96.7 billion in operating expenses. It had also weathered a net loss of $4.5 billion due to a $3.2 billion loss across “other income,” which largely reflected down investments.
    • “I want to thank the people of Kaiser Permanente for their hard work in 2023 to provide members and patients with a positive experience at all touch points while also embracing new ways to drive efficiencies, improve access, and advance health outcomes,” said Chair and CEO Greg A. Adams said in a press release sharing the year’s top-line financial results. “Together, we navigated another challenging year and are on a path to deliver on our mission and bring our distinct brand of value-based care to more people.”
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • “Gilead Sciences will acquire CymaBay Therapeutics and the biotechnology company’s liver disease drug in a $4.3 billion deal announced Monday.
    • “The proposed buyout would hand Gilead an experimental medicine for primary biliary cholangitis, or PBC, a chronic condition characterized by the toxic build-up of bile acid in the liver. CymaBay disclosed Monday that the Food and Drug Administration has accepted its application for the drug, called seladelpar, and will decide on approval by mid-August.”
  • Health IT Analytics notes,
    • “The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) has launched its AI Resource Hub to provide healthcare and health information (HI) stakeholders with knowledge around the use of non-clinical artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
    • “In response to the rise of AI utilization in healthcare, AHIMA partnered with Alazro Consulting to interview experts in the space and AI implementers representing over 200 hospitals and 1,000 clinics across the United States. These structured interviews were then used to develop AHIMA’s newest white paper, upon which the AI Resource Hub is based.  
    • “One of the white paper’s major findings is that the use of AI in healthcare is growing as organizations turn to the technology to optimize efficiency and workflows. These tools are often deployed to support health information management, clinical care, operations, and revenue cycle management.”
  • Fierce Healthcare identified its Fierce 15 of 2024.
    • “This year’s 15 honorees recognized a significant gap in the market, whether it’s for personalized GI care, opening up access to mental health or addressing loneliness among seniors with a robot companion. They then set to work to build forward-thinking solutions to address a specific problem.
    • “They are all taking a fresh angle to long-standing problems in healthcare, such as harnessing AI to streamline clinical documentation or using virtual care to treat the root causes of obesity.”

Happy Super Sunday!

David Ermer–Congress, Medicare, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington DC

  • The deadline for submitting comments on the No Suprises Act IDR operation proposed rule closed recently. Here are links to comments from carriers, AHIP, and our FEHB plan trade association, AFHO.
  • 119 comments were submitted in total. 

From the public health and medical research front,

  • Fortune Well discusses prostate cancer cases in the U.S.
    • “Rates of America’s second-deadliest cancer in men are on the rise—and they’ve been building exponentially for almost a decade straight.
    • “Since 2014, U.S. diagnoses of prostate cancer—highly survivable if caught early—have risen 3% annually. Advanced-stage diagnoses have risen 5% year over year.
    • “Adding insult to injury, Black men are being diagnosed with late stages of the condition at two to three times the rate of white men, and are also around 2.5 times more likely to die of it, experts say.”
  • The American Medical Association explains the steps that patients can take to control their blood pressure.
  • NPR considers the simmering debate simmers when doctors should declare brain death.

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • The Wall Street Journal warns
  • “Medicare Advantage is facing a bit of a disadvantage.
  • “The private plans have grown in popularity in recent years because many seniors like that they come with no monthly premiums and offer extra benefits, including vision and dental coverage as well as fitness memberships. (It also doesn’t hurt that the plans are marketed aggressively). Now, though, the industry is contending with pressure on both cost, as seniors who held back on procedures during the pandemic rush back, and revenue, as the Biden administration curtails payments to plans.
  • “The more challenging financial picture means companies will need to make some tough decisions about their plans next year—either sacrifice profit margins to continue growing or pull back on benefits to boost profitability. While there are other factors at play, if the current trends continue, plans will have to be more cautious in their offerings going forward. 
  • “At this point, it looks pretty clear that next year’s reduction in benefits is really going to reduce enrollment growth,” says David Windley, an analyst at Jefferies.” 

Friday Factoids

David Ermer–CDC, CMS, Congress, COVID-19, FDA, Federal employment benefits, OPM, U.S. Healthcare–

From Washington, DC

  • The U.S. Office of Personnel Management released its call letter for benefit and rate proposals for 2025 FEHB and Postal Service Health Benefit (PSHB) plans. Not surprisingly, the 2025 call letter focuses on the launch of the PSHB Program on January 1, 2025. The next step will be for OPM to issue its technical guidance. The benefit and rate proposals are due on May 31, 2024.
  • Fierce Healthcare reports,
    • “A bipartisan group of senators announced Friday that it is working on new legislation for “long-term reforms” to physician payments under Medicare and other program changes.
    • “In a joint release, U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada; Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee; John Barrasso, R-Wyoming; Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan; Mark Warner, D-Virginia; and Minority Whip John Thune, R-South Dakota said they have formed a “Medicare payment reform working group.”
    • “The lawmakers plan to proposes changes to the physician fee schedule and “make necessary updates” to 2015’s Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA), they said, and “in the coming weeks” will be seeking feedback from stakeholders.”
  • The Department of Health and Human Services announced,
    • “On Thursday, February 8, 2024, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra addressed the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. for its historic Headliners Luncheon.
    • “During his address, he urged the nation to shift from an “illness-care system” to a “wellness-care system.” He also highlighted the Biden-Harris Administration’s work to increase access to quality, affordable health care, lower health care costs, including the cost of prescription drugs, and protect access to reproductive health care.”

From the public health and medical research front,

  • The Centers for Disease Control tells us,
    • What CDC knows
      • BA.2.87.1, a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was identified in South Africa by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases. CDC is closely tracking this variant because of the large number of mutations when compared to previous variants. At this time, BA.2.87.1 has not been identified in clinical specimens outside South Africa. Because this is a newly emerging variant, there is not as much additional data about its potential impact. So far, the public health risk for this new variant appears low.
    • What CDC is doing
      • CDC continues to track the appearance and spread of new variants around the world through genomic surveillance. CDC is working closely with partners in South Africa to gather the latest information on BA.2.87.1. CDC and its partners are continually assessing potential impacts to vaccines, tests, and treatments.
    • Keep reading: CDC Tracks New SARS-CoV-2 Variant, BA.2.87.1
  • Here is a link to the CDC’s Covid Data Tracker.
  • ABC News adds,
    • “The flu virus is hanging on in the U.S., intensifying in some areas of the country after weeks of an apparent national decline. 
    • “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Friday showed a continued national drop in flu hospitalizations, but other indicators were up — including the number of states with high or very high levels for respiratory illnesses.
    • ““Nationally, we can say we’ve peaked, but on a regional level it varies,” said the CDC’s Alicia Budd. “A couple of regions haven’t peaked yet.”
  • MedPage Today lets us know,
    • “The CDC has published its first comprehensive laboratory recommendations for syphilis testing.
    • “Published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reportopens in a new tab or window, the new recommendations include approaches for laboratory-based tests, point-of-care tests, sample processing, and how laboratories should report test results to clinicians and health departments.
    • “The recommendations are primarily for clinical laboratory or disease control personnel, but also for clinicians to understand how to collect and process specimens, interpret test results, and counsel and treat patients, according to CDC researchers led by John Papp, PhD, of the agency’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention in Atlanta.”
  • Mercer Consulting suggests that rising cancer rates call for a comprehensive strategy.
    • “A comprehensive cancer strategy includes both support for employees as they cope with the physical and emotional stresses of a cancer diagnosis, and effective care management to help ensure the patient receives quality care quickly in the most appropriate setting — which can lead to better outcomes and better use of healthcare dollars. Just over a third of large employers (34%) provide a specialized cancer care management program. These programs assist with care coordination, support compliance with treatment regimens, find applicable clinical trials, and connect families to local community resources and to other solutions the employer offers.  
    • “Centers of Excellence or site-of-care navigation programs, offered by 24% of large employers, help ensure that members are treated by quality providers with relevant experience and expertise. Hotlines, caregiver and family advocacy services, and financial planning services can help employees and their families deal with the day-to-day challenges of the cancer journey.”
  • Milliman Consulting offers some use cases for AI in healthcare and their implications for health insurers.
  • Per BioPharma Dive,
    • Takeda Pharmaceutical plans to quickly begin late-stage testing of an experimental drug for narcolepsy, which, if successful, could help the company enter what Wall Street analysts see as a multibillion-dollar market.
    • There are two kinds of narcolepsy, with a key difference being that “Type 1” can involve a sudden loss of muscle control. Takeda has been testing its drug, known as TAK-861, as a potential treatment for both, and on Friday disclosed high-level results from a pair of studies that each focused on one type.
    • “Takeda said the Type 1 trial, which evaluated 112 patients, found those given its drug as opposed to a placebo experienced statistically significant and “clinically meaningful” improvements in wakefulness at the eight-week mark. The company now intends to begin Phase 3 trials in the first half of its fiscal year, which begins April 1.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

  • Per Healthcare Dive,
    • “Primary care providers Indianapolis-based Marathon Health and Denver-based Everside Health completed their merger on Thursday, and will operate as Marathon Health.
    • “The Marathon executive team — CEO Jeff Wells and executive chairman Ben Evans — will stay intact post-merger, while Everside Health CEO Chris Miller will depart the company, according to a company spokesperson. Marathon declined to disclose financial details of the deal.
    • “The new Marathon Health will have a physical presence in 41 states at 680 health centers and provide virtual healthcare in all 50 states.” 
  • and
    • “One Medical is closing several offices and moving its chief financial officer to a role focused on growth as Amazon attempts to reallocate internal resources to cut costs.
    • “One Medical plans to close offices in New York City, Minneapolis and St. Petersburg, Florida, by the end of February, according to an internal email obtained by Business Insider. The company will also downsize its San Francisco office space to one floor.
    • “An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the changes to Healthcare Dive and said the company is reducing its investment in corporate office space given many One Medical corporate employees work remotely.”
  • MedTech Dive informs us,
    • “Fresenius Medical Care has received 510(k) clearance for its high-volume hemodiafiltration dialysis therapy system, the company said Thursday.
    • “The device, the 5008X Hemodialysis System, uses both diffusion and convection to remove waste products from the blood of kidney disease patients. Using diffusion, the standard mechanism for hemodialysis, and convection is intended to improve the removal of larger waste products.
    • “Fresenius plans to start a broad market launch next year and push to establish hemodiafiltration, which is already widely used in Europe, as the new standard of care in the U.S.”
  • Health Payer Intelligence points out “KLAS Report Reveals Top-Performing Vendors for Payer Services. The top-performing vendors varied across payer services, with Zelis ranking high for payment accuracy and integrity and ZeOmega succeeding in care management.”