Monday Roundup

David Ermer–Congress, U.S. Healthcare–
Photo by Sven Read on Unsplash

The Wall Street Journal reports this evening that “The Senate prepared to move ahead this week with Democrats’ sweeping coronavirus relief proposal without an increase in the minimum wage, after a backup plan to raise the wage through tax penalties and incentives fizzled over the weekend.” The Journal of Accountancy helpfully has summarized the tax and non-tax provisions of the House bill. The FEHBlog was surprised to find that the House bill displayed on Congress.gov (H.R. 1319) does not extend the COBRA continuation coverage subsidy to the analogous FEHB’s temporary continuation of coverage program. See page 114 of H.R. 1319.

Pennsylvania-based Blue Cross licensee Highmark announced

today [March 1] that its affiliation unveiled in June 2020 with [fellow Blue Cross licensee] HealthNow New York Inc. has become effective. 

 “We look forward to bringing our resources, tools and advanced technologies to Western and Northeastern New York,” said Deborah Rice-Johnson, president of Highmark Inc. “With this affiliation, we begin our path forward to enhance customer and clinician engagement, create better health outcomes, control costs and improve affordability for members in Western and Northeastern New York.”

In the coming months, the newly affiliated organization will be rebranded Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York and Highmark Blue Shield of Northeastern New York.

From the healthcare studies front:

  • Fierce Healthcare reports that “Giving patients discounts for choosing providers that bundle expensive procedures like knee surgeries together resulted in significant savings, a new study finds. The study, published Monday by RAND Corporation, comes as value-based care models have grown in popularity in Medicare but not as much in commercial insurance. The study examined a program that negotiates a preferred price with certain providers to cover an entire episode of care within a 30-day period and waives cost sharing for patients.
  • The RAND Corporation also has released a report on factors that contribute to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the Black community and how those factors can be addressed.
  • Health Payer Intelligence informs us that

While payers have been focusing justifiably on diminishing healthcare spending for chronic conditions, rare disease healthcare spending may exceed chronic disease healthcare spending, according to the National Economic Burden of Rare Disease study.

The survey on which this study was founded received responses from nearly 1,400 individuals regarding costs related to 379 rare diseases in 2019.

“This primary survey was specifically designed and administered for this study to deepen the understanding of the full spectrum of rare disease (RD) impact,” the study explained.

“The survey was able to collect detailed data on a broad set of indirect and non-medical costs of RD that were previously unavailable, especially the impact of RD on unpaid caregivers. This survey was one of the largest surveys conducted so far covering multiple RD communities.”

These diseases impacted 15.5 million people and cost $966 billion. This number exceeds even chronic disease cost estimates including the most expensive chronic diseases driving healthcare spending in the US such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.