Simplicity is a virtue.

From Washington, DC

• The House of Representatives and the Senate will be on District/State work breaks this week following Labor Day.

From the public health and medical / Rx research front

• The New York Times reports,
  • “Medications are like barnacles,” said Dr. Michael Steinman, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-director of the U.S. Deprescribing Research Network. “They’re easy to start, but they can be hard to stop.” * * *
  • “Recent studies of three medications or classes of drugs widely used among older Americans illustrate the problem.
    • The Drawbacks of Benzodiazepines
    • Overprescribing Antibiotics
    • When Aspirin isn’t the Answer.

• Health Day relates,
  • “Heart-pumping aerobic exercise can boost key thinking skills among women after menopause, a new study says.
  • “Postmenopausal women who practiced aerobic exercise four days a week for half a year performed better on cognitive tests than those who focused on stretching and toning, researchers reported recently in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
  • “Women who did aerobics specifically improved in their executive function — the brain skills that help people plan, juggle tasks, stay focused and maintain independence, results showed.”

• Beckers Behavioral Health tells us,
  • “Suicide-related emergency department visits among children increased 74% from 2016 to 2022, according to a study published Sept. 3 in Annals of Emergency Medicine. The study represented more than 5 million pediatric mental health ED visits in the U.S.”

From the U.S. healthcare business front,

• Avalere Health points out,
  • “Publicly traded health plans recently reported their second quarter financial performance. To assess reported trends, Avalere Health analyzed 10Q forms and filings and earnings call transcripts from six publicly traded health plans: Centene, Cigna, CVS Health, Elevance Health, Humana, and UnitedHealth. Overall, we found that while margins have increased year-over-year, elevated medical costs continue to pressure plans, forcing plans to reexamine membership profitability and reevaluate growth strategies.”

• The Wall Street Journal reports,
  • “About 92% of U.S. health providers now encourage or require prepayment or collect a payment method on file during the medical estimate process.
  • “The trend is driven by insurers shifting more costs to patients, leaving hospitals struggling to collect unpaid bills after procedures.
  • “While federal law doesn’t bar prepayment requests for nonemergency services, some states are enacting laws to address aspects of the trend.”
• and
  • “China is emerging as a favored destination for overseas cancer patients seeking CAR-T therapy due to lower costs and biotech innovation.
  • “CAR-T therapy in China can range from $150,000 to $230,000, compared with $550,000 to $850,000 in the U.S.
  • “Chinese regulators have approved nine CAR-T products, the most in the world, including the first approved CAR-T therapy for solid tumors.”

• Beckers Hospital Review offers “A tale of 2 retailers: What drives success for co-branded Medicare Advantage plans.”