From Washington, DC

• Today, OPM released its 2027 call letter for FEHB and PSHB benefit and rate proposals along with its related technical guidance. The benefit and rate proposal submission deadline is May 31, 2026.
  • CL2026-07 – 2026 FEHB Call Letter.pdf
  • CL2026-08 – PY 2027 Technical Guidance.pdf

• OPM Director Scott Kupor created another post in his Secrets of OPM blog today. This post is titled “Trust but verify,” which has always been the FEHBlog’s favorites Reaganism. Director Kupor concludes,
  • “We have a lot of work to do to ensure the federal government can continue to attract all of the skills needed to deliver on our promises to the American people. While “In America we trust,” in federal hiring we will “trust, but verify.”

• Modern Healthcare informs us,
  • “A bipartisan House bill that lawmakers plan to introduce this week would cap annual Medicare physician reimbursement cuts at 2.5% while giving regulators more leeway to set annual payment updates.
  • “The Provider Reimbursement Stability Act of 2025 is far from the Medicare payment system overhaul doctors have failed to win for years and it does not include a raise for 2027. But the measure would address underlying aspects of the rate-setting process that medical societies say contributed to pay cuts and modest increases in recent years. 
  • “Under the legislation, CMS would gain financial flexibility, could consider medical inflation in narrow circumstances when calculating fees, and would make changes to the base values it uses to set rates and correct errors that the American Medical Association estimates have cost doctors billions.”

• STAT News tells us,
  • “Sellers of health savings accounts see an opening for expanding their market, and they’re ramping up lobbying efforts to seize the opportunity.
  • “A group of companies and organizations tied to the HSA industry this year formed a nonprofit called the Great American Health Alliance, or GAHA, a riff on Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA. * * *
  • “Members of GAHA include HealthEquity, one of the largest administrators of HSAs, and the American Bankers Association, which represents institutions holding about 90% of HSAs. GAHA is run by brothers Keith Nahigian, who is the group’s president and has worked for multiple GOP presidential campaigns, and Ken Nahigian, who led the Trump transition in 2017 and was health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s liaison to senators during his confirmation process.”

• American Hospital Association News reports,
  • “The Department of Health and Human Services March 31 announced that it is reverting a 2024 reorganization of health IT leadership and services. The dually titled Office of the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy/Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT will now restore ONC as a singularly titled office. The HHS Chief Technology Officer, HHS Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and HHS Chief Data Officer roles and responsibilities will move back under the HHS Office of the Chief Information Officer. HHS said the changes reinforce OCIO’s responsibility for enterprise IT, cybersecurity and data operations, while ONC will focus on health IT policy, standards and certification.”
• and
  • “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services March 20 released a memorandum reinforcing hospital nutrition service obligations for hospitals. The memo reminds hospitals of the Medicare conditions of participation that require hospitals to ensure menus and diets meet individual patient nutritional needs in accordance with recognized dietary practices. It also asks hospitals to review and revise their food and nutrition service policies, standard menus, therapeutic protocols and other practices to align with the recently released 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. CMS makes several recommendations for hospital inpatient menus, including limiting ultra-processed foods; eliminating sugar-sweetened beverages unless clinically appropriate in limited scenarios; eliminating refined grains and replacing them with 100% whole grains; prioritizing minimally processed protein sources, including plant-based options; and emphasizing vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, seeds, seafood and healthy fats.” 
    
• The Wall Street Journal adds,
  • “New nutrition guidance from the American Heart Association advises getting protein from plants rather than meat, choosing low-fat or fat-free dairy and using olive, soybean and canola oils instead of beef tallow and butter. 
  • “The recommendations, released Tuesday by the association, contrast with dietary guidelines that the Trump administration introduced earlier this year.
  • “The differences add to disagreements between the federal government and mainstream medical groups on medicine and nutrition advice, after the Health and Human Services Department under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for instance, sought to dial back vaccine recommendations and President Trump told pregnant women to minimize Tylenol use.
  • * * * “The association’s latest recommendations are mostly unchanged from the guidelines that it released in 2021 and that the federal government had issued before this year.
  • “Like the federal government, the AHA defines a healthy diet as rich in vegetables and fruits and low in added sugars and ultraprocessed foods. 
  • “Dr. Stacey Rosen, AHA’s president, who is a cardiologist and a senior vice president of women’s health at Northwell Health in New York, said the government’s encouragement to eat red meat and full-fat dairy products could hurt people’s health. “It has been shown repeatedly to be a not healthy way to eat,” she said.”

From the Food and Drug Administration front,

• Fierce Pharma reports,
  • “Amgen’s rare disease drug Tavneos is under mounting regulatory scrutiny, with the FDA warning of serious liver injuries, including some fatalities, among patients who received the drug. 
  • “From the drug’s approval in 2021 through October 2024, 76 cases of drug-induced liver injury with “reasonable evidence” of a causal association to Tavneos were reported to the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), according to a Tuesday safety communication.
  • “The medicine is available as an adjunct treatment for severe active anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis. But the FDA is looking to change that with a request for Amgen to withdraw the product, which the company has so far resisted.”

• Reuters relates,
  • “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a higher dose of Biogen’s (BIIB.O), opens new tab spinal muscular atrophy drug Spinraza, the company said on Monday, after rejecting it last year.
  • “The approval for a potentially ​more effective treatment marks a boost for the U.S. drugmaker battling intensifying competition ​from therapies such as Roche’s (ROPC.S), opens new tab oral drug Evrysdi and Novartis’ (NOVN.S), opens new tab gene therapies ⁠Zolgensma and Itvisma.”

• Cardiovascular Business tells us,
  • “Anumana, a Massachusetts-based artificial intelligence (AI) company co-founded by nference and Mayo Clinic, has secured U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for its advanced pulmonary hypertension (PH) algorithm. The algorithm, which previously received the FDA’s breakthrough device designation, was designed to detect signs of PH in standard 12-lead electrocardiograms (ECGs).
  • “PH is a life-threatening condition that can be difficult for care teams to diagnose. It directly impacts the arteries in a patient’s lungs as well as the right side of their heart. While there is no cure, treatments are available once a diagnosis is confirmed. 
  • ‘Anumana’s newly cleared AI model was built with data from more than 250,000 de-identified Mayo Clinic patients. It runs entirely within the care team’s own hospital or health system environment.
  • “According to Anumana, the algorithm was linked to a sensitivity of 73% and specificity of 74.4% in adult patients presenting with dyspnea. A separate study found that it was able to identify more than 85% of patients presenting with pulmonary arterial hypertension as well as 78% of patients presenting with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension.”
• and
  • “A new-look embolic protection device for reducing the risk of stroke after transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is associated with clinical outcomes comparable to Boston Scientific’s Sentinel Cerebral Protection System, according to new data presented at ACC.26 in New Orleans.
  • “The device in question is the Emboliner Embolic Protection System from California-based Emboline. Features include a double-wall, cylindrical mesh filter made of Nitinol and a self-sealing port that allows devices such as TAVR delivery systems to pass through when necessary. 
  • “The ProtectH2H clinical trial was a head-to-head comparison of the Emboliner and Sentinel devices. It is believed to be the first head-to-head analysis of any two embolic protection devices for TAVR. More than 500 TAVR patients with a mean age of 79 years old were enrolled out of the United States, Germany and Brazil. Patients were excluded if they had experienced a stroke in the previous six months.”

From the public health and medical / Rx research front,

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reminds us,
  • “Chronic kidney disease (CKD) affects more than 37 million U.S. adults. That’s more than 1 in 10 people. The risk is even higher for people with diabetes or high blood pressure. Nearly 4 in 10 adults with diabetes and 2 in 10 adults with high blood pressure have CKD. 
  • “Most people with CKD—about 9 in 10—do not know they have it. CKD often has no early symptoms, but simple blood and urine tests can help find it early. Knowing your risk and getting tested could help protect your kidneys.”

• Avalere Health marks “National Kidney Month with An Outlook in the 2026 Kidney Care Policy, Payment, and Treatment Landscape.”
  • “Evolving kidney transplant regulations, payment reforms, and accelerated innovation in treatments are opening new opportunities across the kidney care landscape.”

• This week’s issue of NIH Reseach Matters covers the following topics:
  • SuperAgers show unique cell signatures in the brain
    • “Researchers linked neuron creation to exceptional recall and memory in older adults.
    • “Understanding how new neurons are created in adulthood could help lead to interventions that promote healthy aging.”
  • Scientists identify proteins tied to food tolerance
    • “Scientists identified parts of proteins that interact with immune cells and allow mice to tolerate certain foods rather than have an allergic reaction.
    • “The findings enhance our current understanding of food tolerance and may lead to new therapies for people with food allergies.”
  • Using RNA to treat heart attacks
    • “An RNA-based lipid nanoparticle therapy helped the heart recover from a heart attack in animal studies.
    • “The results suggest a new strategy for treating heart attacks and repairing damage to the heart.”

• MedPage tells us,
  • “Significant incidental findings detected on low-dose CT lung cancer screening were associated with an increased risk of an extrapulmonary cancer diagnosis over the following year.
  • “Risk differences were significantly higher for urinary cancers, as well as lymphoma and leukemia.
  • “Certain significant incidental findings should be assessed as potential indicators of undiagnosed cancers, researchers said.”

• Healio adds,
  • “MRIs may be a reasonable option for high-risk patients with extremely dense breasts.
  • “A simulation study found MRIs moderately reduced breast cancer mortality in this group but increased rates of false positives.”
• and
  • “In stable patients without heart failure, discontinuing beta-blockers 1 year after a heart attack was noninferior to continued use for all-cause death, recurrent MI or HF hospitalization, researchers reported. 
  • “The SMART-DECISION trial is the first randomized study to demonstrate the noninferiority of beta-blocker discontinuation in post-MI patients without left ventricular systolic dysfunction or heart failure,” Joo-Yong Hahn, MD, a cardiologist at Samsung Medical Center in Seoul, South Korea, said during a press conference at the American College of Cardiology Scientific Session. The results were simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.”

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “AstraZeneca AZN reported mixed results from three late-stage clinical trials of an experimental treatment for a rare metabolic disease, but remains confident the drug can generate annual peak sales of $3 billion to $5 billion.
  • “The U.K. drugmaker expects to be able to launch the medicine, efzimfotase alfa, in more markets than its predecessor treatment, Strensiq, the chief executive of AstraZeneca’s rare-disease unit Alexion, Marc Dunoyer, said in an interview Tuesday. It plans to submit data to regulators as soon as possible, Dunoyer added.
  • “AstraZeneca said the results of the studies support the drug’s potential to transform the treatment of hypophosphatasia, a rare, chronic disease caused by deficient activity of an enzyme that is important for building healthy bones and supporting proper muscle function.”

From the U.S. healthcare business and artificial intelligence front,

• Modern Healthcare reports,
  • “Kurt Small has been named as president and CEO of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, effective May 4. 
  • “Small is the president of Medicaid for Elevance Health. 
  • He will succeed Ja’Ron Bridges, who has been serving as interim president and CEO since Brian Pieninck left the company in September to become president and CEO of GuideWell and its insurer subsidiary Florida Blue, a CareFirst spokesperson said Tuesday. * * *
  • “Bridges will return to his former role as CareFirst’s executive vice president and chief financial officer. 
  • “Small held several leadership roles at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, Highmark and Aetna prior to joining CareFirst, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.”

• Healthcare Dive adds,
  • “Elevance announced a slate of mid-level executive appointments on Tuesday as the company continues to shuffle its leadership roster to try to combat waning profits.
  • “The insurer named two new executives to its health benefits division, including a new president of government business after the previous president was promoted to lead Elevance’s broader insurance arm.
  • “Carelon, Elevance’s health services division, added four new executives, including its first chief growth and strategy officer as the company seeks to accelerate Carelon’s expansion.”
  • “The appointments are effective immediately.”

• The Wall Street Journal informs us,
  • “Eli Lilly LLY has agreed to buy clinical-stage company Centessa Pharmaceuticals CNTA for an initial payment of about $6.3 billion in a deal that expands the drugmaker’s neuroscience portfolio and capabilities into sleep medicine.
  • “Eli Lilly on Tuesday said it will pay an initial $38 a share in cash for Centessa, a 38% premium to Monday’s closing price of $27.58 for the U.K.-based company.
  • “Centessa investors will also receive nontransferrable contingent value rights worth up to an additional $9 a share, bringing the total potential deal consideration to about $7.8 billion, or $47 a share.
  • “The deal is slated to close in the third quarter.’

• Fierce Pharma adds,
  • “Despite a healthy roster of late-stage assets and a revenue turnaround in 2025, it’s no secret that Biogen has been seeking near-term sales drivers ahead of its planned product rollouts later in the decade. 
  • “Now, the company is responding by bulking up in immunology—and paving the way for its future ambitions in kidney diseases—with an M&A play that adds two ongoing launches to its marketed drugs portfolio.
  • “On Tuesday, Biogen unveiled a deal to acquire Apellis Pharmaceuticals for $41 per share in cash, representing a total transaction value of roughly $5.6 billion. For Biogen, the deal grants access to the approved Apellis meds Syfovre for the eye condition geographic atrophy (GA) and Empaveli, approved by the FDA last year in the rare kidney diseases complement 3 glomerulopathy (C3G) and primary immune complex membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis (IC-MPGN).” 

• The Wall Street Journal notes,
  • “Big drugmakers are pursuing smaller acquisitions, typically under $10 billion, reflecting a more cautious approach to dealmaking.
  • “Deals between $1 billion and $10 billion represent 76% of pharmaceutical transactions by value this year to date.
  • “Companies like Eli Lilly and Biogen are making smaller deals to bolster pipelines and avoid risks associated with large acquisitions.”

• Per an Institute for Clinical and Economic Review news release,
  • “The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) today releaseda Final Evidence Report assessing the comparative clinical effectiveness and value of sibeprenlimab (Voyxact®, Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd.), atacicept (Vera Therapeutics, Inc.), and delayed-release budesonide (“Nefecon”, Tarpeyo®, Calliditas Therapeutics AB) for IgA nephropathy.
  • “ICER’s report on this therapy was the subject of the February 2026 public meeting of the California Technology Assessment Forum (CTAF), one of ICER’s three independent evidence appraisal committees. 
  • “Downloads: Final Evidence Report | Report-at-a-Glance | Policy Recommendations“

• Beckers Hospital Review informs us,
  • “Retail and e-commerce giants are rapidly expanding their presence in pharmacy services, prompting new concerns among hospital and health system leaders about losing ground in patient access and workforce recruitment.
  • “Amazon, for example, is significantly scaling its pharmacy footprint. The company plans to expand its same-day prescription delivery service to 4,500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026 — adding nearly 2,000 new communities as it targets patients affected by pharmacy closures, staffing shortages and transportation barriers.
  • “Walmart is taking a different approach, focusing heavily on its workforce. The retailer recently promoted 3,000 pharmacy technicians into pharmacy operations team lead roles while also increasing pay. Technician wages now average $22 per hour, with some earning as much as $40.50 depending on certification and location. The newly created team lead roles average $28 per hour, with potential earnings up to $42.”
• and
  • “Novo Nordisk has launched a multimonth subscription program for Wegovy, which claims to offer more predictable, lower pricing for eligible self-pay patients who enroll through select telehealth providers.
  • “The program is currently available through Ro, WeightWatchers and LifeMD. Additional platforms, including Hims & Hers and Sesame, are expected to join, according to a March 31 news release from Novo. Patients can choose three-, six- or 12-month subscriptions, with longer terms offering lower monthly costs.
  • “Under the program, Wegovy injections are priced at $329 per month for a three-month subscription, $299 per month for six months and $249 per month for 12 months — representing savings of up to $1,200 annually. Oral formulations are priced at $289, $269 and $249 per month across the same timeframes, respectively, with savings of up to $600 annually.
  • “The subscription model aims to reduce cost uncertainty and support adherence for patients managing obesity, a chronic condition that requires ongoing care, according to the release.”

• Healthcare Innovation considers the “Link Between Ambient Scribes and Increased Coding Intensity.”
  • “Allison Oakes, Ph.D., Trilliant’s chief research officer, discusses how AI-enabled documentation may intersect with coding activity.”
  • “According to Trilliant, AI scribing tools have been associated with an increase in high-intensity outpatient billing codes across six health systems.
  • “The increase in higher-intensity billing codes may reflect improved documentation accuracy rather than intentional overbilling.
  • “Enhanced transparency and auditability of AI-driven billing are crucial for detecting potential issues and ensuring fair reimbursement practices.”

• Radiology Business has a different outlook.
  • “Imaging interpretation times have more than doubled over the course of a decade, according to new Neiman Health Policy Institute research published Tuesday. 
  • “Current workforce shortages in the specialty are being spurred by increasing per-patient demand for imaging, an aging population and the limited supply of radiologists. As hiring challenges persist, there are growing concerns about the impact on patient care, experts write in JACR. 
  • “Researchers recently aimed to assess how turnaround times—or the period between when a scan is performed and a radiologist reads the images—have changed in recent years. They found that the length of this window leapt by 113% between 2014 and 2023, with worsening wait times beginning two years after the COVID-19 pandemic. 
  • “The potential negative clinical impact of growing turnaround time for the interpretation of imaging must be closely monitored, especially if the trend worsens,” study co-author Cindy Yuan, MD, with the Indiana University School of Medicine, said in a statement March 13. “We think these results are an early indicator of a worsening problem. If the sudden change in 2022 reflects that there is no remaining capacity for the radiology workforce to absorb new workload, then continued imaging growth will eventually impact patients.”

• MedTech Dive points out,
  • “Whoop, the wearable company that sparked a debate on wellness regulations, has raised $575 million.
  • “The series G round values Whoop at $10.1 billion, the company said on Tuesday. Abbott joined as a strategic investor.
  • “Whoop plans to put the funds toward its U.S. and international growth, as well as personalized health features.”

• Fierce Healthcare relates,
  • “eMed pocketed $200 million in funding to build out its AI agentic platform and offer new models for employers, including programs for GLP-1 medications.
  • “The funding round boosts the company’s valuation to $2 billion. AON Consulting led the round along with prominent investors former NFL player Tom Brady, founding chief wellness officer, Jeff Aronin, founder, chairman and CEO of Paragon Biosciences; Ara Cohen, co-founder and co-managing Member of Knighthead Capital Management; Antonio Gracias, founder and CEO of Valor Equity Partners; Joe Lonsdale, founder and managing partner at 8VC and co-founder of Palantir; R.J. Melman, CEO, Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants; Tom Ricketts, chairman of the Chicago Cubs; and former X CEO and current eMed CEO Linda Yaccarino. 
  • “The company plans to use the fresh capital to support and fund a new capitated model designed to help employers bend the healthcare cost curve. GLP-1 medications are the most requested workplace benefit, yet only one in five companies provide the benefit, according to the company.”