While the FEHBlog usually doesn’t post on Saturday, we are now half way through the Federal Benefits Open Season and several helpful articles on that topic have been published over the past week; so here you go.
Tammy Flanagan discusses in Govexec.com federal employee and annuitant options in the FEHBP and FEDVIP and federal employee options in FSAFeds program.
A couple of FEHBlog reminders on FSAFeds — the contribution caps on dependent and healthcare care flexible spending accounts for federal employees are the maximum permitted by federal law; healthcare FSA accountholders can tap their account before the funds have been deposited while dependent care FSA accountholders must wait until funds have been deposited before making permissible expenditures. The FEHBlog has noticed that OPM promptly updates their FSA plan when Congress or the Internal Revenue Service offers new flexibilities.
Walt Francis discusses FEHBP options and offers his quick picks in FEDWeek.
FedSmith analyzes FEHBP high deductible plans with health savings accounts and other consumer driven plans.
Based on the CDC’s Cases in the U.S. website, here is the FEHBlog’s chart of new weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths over the 20th through 47th weeks of this year (beginning May 14 and ending November 25; using Thursday as the first day of the week in order to facilitate this weekly update):
and here is the CDC’s latest overall weekly hospitalization rate chart for COVID-19:
The ending drop, which is found in every weekly chart, is not meaningful. The CDC’s Fluview was not updated today.
The FEHBlog has noted that the new cases and deaths chart shows a flat line for new weekly deaths because new cases greatly exceed new deaths. Accordingly here is a chart of new COVID-19 deaths over the same period (May 14 through November 25).
You will notice that FEHBlog has figured out how to more clearly present the two axes in these charts.
Although weekly new deaths continue to rise sharply, that weekly total remains below the heights reached in the Spring (shown below) even though the number of new cases in the fall (over 1 million last week) eclipse the number of new cases in the Spring (April 2 through May 13, always under 200,000 weekly):
The FEHBlog was happy to read in the Wall Street Journal that United Airlines has begun “operating charter flights to position doses of Pfizer Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine for quick distribution if the shots are approved by regulators, according to people familiar with the matter.”
The FEHBlog plans a special Federal Benefits Open Season issue tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Even in this difficult year, we Americans can still enjoy our great holiday Thanksgiving. The Wall Street Journal discusses a study of how to cope with the COVID-19 great hunkering down — the results tie in with traditional Thanksgiving activities
“[M]usic [parades], exercise [touch football] and entertainment [NFL football and movies] were the most potent stress relievers for the greatest number of people. But of those three activities, music—singing, dancing, playing an instrument, or just listening to a favorite playlist—was the only one that led to a reduction of depression symptoms. A fifth of all the participants reported it as the most effective way to reduce their pandemic-induced blues. Music’s palliative effects were particularly potent for people who were highly sensitive to rewards. * * * [Needless to say] Cooking, baking and eating also helped tamp down the blues.
Health Payer Intelligence reports, and the FEHBlog could not agree more strongly that
Employers are gravitating toward integrated health care benefits to improve member engagement and patient experience as well as lower healthcare spending, according to a report commissioned by Anthem.
Integrated health care interweaves pharmacy, ancillary, supplemental health, and other benefits data into the employer’s health plan to facilitate smoother communication between employees’ providers.
Provider collaboration is key to this strategy. Three key methods for facilitating provider collaboration included connecting all providers through an [electronic medical record] EMR, establishing automatic reminders about extra dental cleanings, and sending health-related reminders to employees. Employers also leveraged AI and apps to connect employees to their benefits.
That’s a very interesting use of EMRs to help close gaps in care.
The Internal Revenue Service has announced that the Affordable Care Act’s Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (“PCORI”) fee “for policy years and plan years that end on or after October 1, 2020, and before October 1, 2021, is $2.66” per covered health plan life (/ bellybutton). The PCORI fee payment is due at the end of July. The adjusted fee is 12 cents higher than the fee paid in July 2020.
It turns out that, according to Precision Vaccinations, the Food and Drug Administration’s “Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) held an out-of-schedule, emergency meeting to discuss various issues related to experimental COVID-19 vaccine candidates.” Rather than tackle the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine emergency use authorization request the Committee primarily considered vaccination allocation issues. “During the ACIP’s Phase 1a proposed allocation plan, healthcare workers and those seniors living in Long-Term Care Facilities (LTCF), and those working for these facilities, would be the 1# priority group for vaccinations. As of November 6, 2020, LTCF residents and staff accounted for 6 percent of COVID-19 cases and 39 percent of related fatalities in the USA.”
STAT News adds that “Essential workers are likely to move ahead of adults 65 and older and people with high-risk medical conditions when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signs off on Covid-19 vaccine priority lists, coming after health care workers and people living in long-term care facilities, a meeting of an expert advisory panel made clear Monday. * * * Essential workers include people who work in meat packing plants and other food processing facilities, in municipal wastewater management operations, and in transport. It also includes police and firefighters and, in the current iteration of the ACIP’s plan, teachers. The CDC estimates there are roughly 87 million people in jobs designated as essential services.”
Fierce Healthcare reports that “The U.S. federal government aims to distribute 6.4 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine to states 24 hours after it gets emergency approval, and officials are in the midst of dry runs to prepare for the shipments, officials said Tuesday. The White House’s Operation Warp Speed, a joint initiative between the departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Defense that aims to distribute the vaccine, gave an update to reporters Tuesday on the initial allocations of a vaccine. The update comes as emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) could come in the middle of December.”
MHealthIntelligence.com provides a helpful overview of the Stark, Anti-kickback Act changes rule.
According to Carrie Nixon, co-founder and managing partner of Nixon Gwilt Law, the OIG’s Final Rule “gives healthcare providers and digital health companies more flexibility to enter into new business arrangements that incentivize care coordination and patient engagement as a means of improving outcomes and reducing the overall cost of care.”
“These new protections allow players in the digital health space – including Remote Patient Monitoring companies, telehealth companies, and healthcare predictive analytics platforms – to take on an unprecedented role in helping healthcare providers move the needle on patient outcomes and costs by providing in-kind and even monetary remuneration to these providers in the form of free or reduced cost items/services or shared savings arrangements,” she summarized in a recent article on her law firm’s website.
Deregulation is a very good thing. The FEHBlog prays that the Biden Administration does not back away from it.
The FEHBlog found OPM’s Fiscal Year 2020 Financial Report on its website today. Here’s a link.
Another Monday, another COVID-19 vaccine — the newest from Oxford University (UK) and Astrazeneca. The Times of London reports that
Oxford University scientists said this morning that they had created “a vaccine for the world” as trial results showed that their Covid-19 jab worked well enough to apply immediately for regulatory approval.
The vaccine involves two injections, administered at least a month apart, and the results suggest that using a lower first dose could boost efficacy to 90 per cent. However, that finding relied on limited data and may be amended.
Overall, a trial involving 24,000 people suggested that the vaccine was about 70 per cent effective.
It prevented severe disease and the need to be admitted to hospital, and there are promising early signs that it might also block transmission of the virus. No dangerous side-effects were reported, and the British medical regulator has begun to review safety and efficacy data.
Britain has ordered 100 million doses, and Astrazeneca, the drug company that is working with Oxford, said this morning that four million of those would be ready to be sent to care homes, GP clinics and other vaccination centres by the end of the year.
The Oxford vaccine can be stored in a normal fridge, making it easier to handle than Pfizer’s competing inoculation, which must be stored at about minus 70C. It is also considerably cheaper, costing a few pounds per dose. It is possible that the first doses could be administered before Christmas.
The FEHBlog heard on Fox Business this morning that a separate phase three trial for the Oxford vaccine is ongoing in our country. Oxford and Astrazeneca will present an emergency use authorization request to our Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) based on that as yet uncompleted trial. The trial referenced in the Times of London article was conducted in the United Kingdom and Brazil. The FDA does not require that the phase three trials be conducted in the U.S. For example, the agency approved the Ebola vaccine based on a phase three trial conducted in Africa, but of course there’s no problem finding COVID-19 patients here.
Reuters reports that the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will meet on December 10 to review the Pfizer / BioNTech emergency use application for its COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA is not bound by the Committee’s recommendation. Here is a link to the full FDA press release.
A friend of the FEHBlog recommended the 20 minute long Journal podcast interview with the founder of BioNTech Dr. Ugur Sahin. The FEHBlog found that podcast fascinating listening.
Govexec.com reports that “The departments of Defense and State, as well as the Veterans Affairs Department’s Veterans Health Administration, the Bureau of Prisons and Indian Health Service, will all receive a direct allocation of vaccines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The plan was spelled out in a COVID-19 Vaccination Program Interim Playbook, which was first reported by CNBC.”
Following up on the major Health and Human Services rule makings on Fridays here are article with industry reaction:
As the FEHBlog expected, Fierce Healthcare reports that “A hurried final rule aimed at tying drug prices to those paid by foreign countries could lead to providers paying more for drugs than what they will get reimbursed by Medicare, according to several providers and experts.” It really makes you wonder why the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates conditionally endorsed adding a public option to the ACA marketplace earlier this month.
Fierce Healthcare further informs us that “CMS’ Stark, anti-kickback updates draw praise from hospitals, concern from physician groups.”
Health Payer Intelligence discusses the Medicare rule restricting the use of prescription drug rebates in Medicare Part D effective January 1, 2022. The FEHBlog cannot understand why if drug manufacturers want to end the rebate practices, it does not assure (with an enforcement mechanism) the health insurance industry and the government that the price reductions will balance out the lost rebates.
Both Houses of Congress are on break this week for the Thanksgiving holiday.
We will be half way through the current Federal Benefits Open Season in the middle of this coming week. Open Season ends on December 14.
Believe or not, there was one more HHS final rule issued last Friday on top of three others discussed in Friday Stats and More. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “finalized a rule that is designed to increase the supply of lifesaving organs available for transplant in the United States by requiring that the organizations responsible for organ procurement be transparent in their performance, highlighting the best and worst performers, and requiring them to compete on their ability to successfully facilitate transplants.”
Healthcare Dive reports that even though COVID-19 hospitalizations have been surging in the our country at least the large hospital chains are weathering this COVID-19 storm better than the earlier surges this year.
Top executives from hospital chains Tenet and UHS said that’s because there aren’t as many unknowns as in the previous coronavirus surge earlier this year, speaking this week at Wolfe Research’s virtual healthcare conference.
“Yes, we are seeing increases across the country. Clearly that is what you read, but it’s not anywhere near where we’re not able to handle it,” Tenet CEO Ron Rittenmeyer said Wednesday.
Tenet has more facilities in Texas than any other state, and reports on the ground there paint a far more harrowing picture, though. Hospitals across the country say they are overrun, and some have had to halt or pare back on elective procedures to ensure they have enough staff and equipment to care for COVID-19 patients.
For UHS’ acute care hospitals, the second wave around the July timeframe was much worse than what they’re experiencing today, CFO Steve Filton said Thursday — though UHS does have two hospitals, both in Texas, with record levels of COVID-19 patients.
The billionaire Walton family that controls Walmart Inc. is among a group of investors backing a startup aiming to design at-home Covid-19 tests to sell for as little as $10 at the retail giant’s stores and elsewhere.
NowDiagnostics Inc., based 20 miles south of Walmart’s corporate headquarters, has filed requests for emergency authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a Covid-19 antibody blood test, according to the Springdale, Ark., company.
It is also developing two at-home Covid-19 tests that would use a patient’s saliva and deliver results in minutes, said Chief Executive Kevin Clark. One of those would be an antigen test that looks for virus proteins to diagnose an active infection and the other an antibody test, which looks for an immune response that can signal a previous infection. None of the tests have been authorized by the FDA for use.
The Boston Globe offers this attention-grabbing quote (and more)
“The [COVID-19] virus is not likely to go away, maybe ever, but certainly not for a long time,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “But that said, we’re not going to be living like this forever, and in fact, I expect by springtime that things will start really getting much, much better [due to the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines]. And then it’ll continue to get better. And at some point, we will no longer feel like we’re living in the middle of a pandemic.”
Though experts varied on how quickly these things might happen, with some saying it could be summer before a shift toward normalcy begins, all agreed on the rough outline: As vaccination increases, major outbreaks will decrease in size and frequency and restrictions will gradually lift.
Our new normal will not be without its reminders of the pandemic, experts said. A high level of public health surveillance will be crucial to monitoring and preventing outbreaks. Taking a rapid test before eating out or starting work could well be part of our new normal. And because COVID-19 could recede at different times in different countries based on vaccine availability, travel screening and some level of international border restrictions could remain in place for years to come.
In this regard, the Wall Street Journal opines that “Even after a Covid-19 vaccine, changes to how we shop, dine, work out and entertain ourselves are likely to endure.”
As marketers of new technologies can tell you, the hardest part is getting people to adopt new ways of doing things. But this tendency also means that new innovations can be sticky: Once a habit is established, it’s not easily broken.
During the pandemic, 10 years of consumer adoption of e-commerce was compressed into three months, according to a recent survey by McKinsey. Adoption has varied by age, since younger people were already more likely to shop—and do everything else—online. A survey just out from digital consultancy Mobiquity found a 47% increase in the number of baby boomers reporting they had ordered delivery from a restaurant through a website or app; a 193% increase in the number ordering groceries through a website or app; and a 469% increase in the number who had used telemedicine. Nearly 9 in 10 boomer respondents said they’ll continue to use such technologies even after the pandemic ends.
Based on the CDC’s COVID-19 Data Tracker website, here is the FEHBlog’s chart of new weekly COVID-19 cases and deaths over the 20th through 46th weeks of this year (beginning May 14 and ending November 18, roughly six months; using Thursday as the first day of the week in order to facilitate this weekly update):
The upward surge in COVID-19 cases is reflected the CDC’s latest overall weekly hospitalization rate chart for COVID-19 (disregards the dip at the right side of the chart):
The FEHBlog has noted that the new cases and deaths chart shows a flat line for new weekly deaths because new cases greatly exceed new deaths. Accordingly here is a chart of new COVID-19 deaths over the same six month long period (May 14 through November 18) (the dip at the tail of this chart is accurate information).
Meanwhile the CDC’s weekly flu surveillance report continues to inform us that “Seasonal influenza activity in the United States remains lower than usual for this time of year.” Better one epidemic than two.
On the bright side, according to the Wall Street Journal, Pfizer and BioNTech did file an emergency use authorization request for their COVID-19 vaccine today.
Now it will be up to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to decide whether the two-shot vaccine works safely enough to roll out to millions of people.
It is unclear how long the agency will take to review the vaccine, which Pfizer and BioNTech just days earlier said was 95% effective and well-tolerated in a 44,000-subject trial.
Given the urgency, the FDA is expected to move quickly. The timing of the filing is in line with industry and government officials’ projections for authorization and distribution to begin next month. Pfizer said the filing could allow for distribution to begin the middle to end of December.
The Health and Human Services Department (“HHS”) released a string of final rules today affecting Medicare prescription drug plans and both hurting and helping the finances of doctors participating in Medicare and certain other federal health programs (but thankfully not the FEHBP). As the saying goes, he who lives by the sword can die the sword.
HHS issued a final rule generally barring the use of prescription drug rebates in the Medicare Part D program effective January 1, 2022.
HHS issued another final rule that implements, effective January 1, 2021, a pilot program”, known as the Most Favored Nation (MFN) Model, [that] will test [for seven years] an innovative way for Medicare to pay no more for high cost, physician-administered Medicare Part B drugs than the lowest price charged in other similar countries.”
Finally. HHS issued a final rule which loosens up on self-referral a/k/a Stark Act rules that inhibit the entrepreneurial spirit of doctors participating in Medicare. The purposes of the change is to facilitate value based pricing and coordinated care. Doctors should like this one but the FEHBlog wonders whether the AMA will think that it goes far enough.
Of course, we also will have to wait to see the incoming Biden Administration’s reaction to these rules.
Healthcare Dive discusses conflicting viewpoints on AHIP’s position which the FEHBlog shares that the COVID-19 relief law Wild West approach to health plan coverage of out-of-network COVID-19 leads to price gouging. Only Congress can fix this problem.
Congressional leaders have voiced early speculation in recent days that lawmakers will be able to set line-by-line funding levels for agencies throughout government before the end of the year without the need for another stopgap measure.
Top negotiators in the House and Senate met on Thursday to discuss a potential compromise for the rest of fiscal 2021 appropriations. On Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was the most recent leader to cautiously express optimism that Congress can pass a full-year, omnibus spending bill before the current continuing resolution expires Dec. 11.
“The anticipation was that it was really about the omnibus,” Pelosi said of the meeting. “You have to remember, we have to have an omnibus bill. We must keep government open.” She added it was a “very important responsibility” during the lame duck session of the 116th Congress. “We don’t want another continuing resolution. I don’t think they do either.”
Finally, the FEHBlog was impressed by Humana CEO Bruce Broussard’s call for health system interoperability without further delay. Mr. Broussard is Board Chair of America’s Health Insurance Plans for 2021. Here’s a snippet.
Change requires reforming the incentive structure to encourage and require vendors to create and sell systems that can talk to each other. Health care systems, hospitals, and physician practices — guided or encouraged by the market and the federal government — should choose interoperable systems. Public and private payers should implement value-based payment models that reward the purchase and use of interoperable systems. It’s also up to the federal government to implement and enforce standards for EHR vendors that promote interoperability while simultaneously strengthening the protection of personal health information.
If industry and government don’t lead the charge to make America’s health care system interoperable, consumers will bear the challenge of piecing together their own health data across the system — a dangerous prospect that could hinder patient care in the midst of a global pandemic. The free flow of protected data across the health care system ensures that treatment decisions are informed safely and effectively by the most current information available and tailored to the individual. A clinician with complete information at her fingertips can easily see the full picture and manage her patient’s care from the hospital to the pharmacy to long-term follow-up care.
This pandemic will eventually end. But the need for interoperability will remain urgent as we seek long-term solutions to bring down costs, improve care delivery, and increase efficiency in our health care system.
It is National Rural Health Day which HHS’s Health Resources and Services Administration is proud to celebrate.
The Defense Department reports on yesterday’s Operation Warp Speed press conference. The Wall Street Journal adds that
Initially, people will be vaccinated at hospitals and large medical centers because supplies will be limited, said Marion Whicker, deputy chief of supply, production and distribution at Operation Warp Speed, the federal initiative to speed development of Covid-19 drugs and vaccines. “When you see vaccines start to equal or exceed demand is when you’ll see it out of the pharmacies,” said Ms. Whicker.
According to Endpoint News, “BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told CNN Wednesday that they and Pfizer plan to file for an emergency use authorization for their jointly developed vaccine on Friday [/ tomorrow].
The Wall Street Journal further reports on the COVID-19 front that
U.S. hospitals say they are facing the pandemic’s largest surge armed with treatment improvements that allow them to save lives, care for more patients and accelerate the recovery of coronavirus sufferers.
HCA Healthcare Inc., one of the nation’s largest hospital chains with 186 hospitals, has more intensive-care capacity as the sickest patients recover more quickly. At the Mayo Clinic’s hospital in Rochester, Minn., coronavirus patients now stay a median of five days, half as long as in March. The time Covid-19 patients spend at Advocate Aurora Health’s 26 Midwestern hospitals has fallen 25% on average since May.
The shift could be a result of several factors and more study is needed, said doctors and researchers. But the results are consistent with anecdotal reports from doctors saying that new tools and a better understanding of how Covid-19 attacks the body are helping to improve medical outcomes.
a pilot program with five states to use portable, cartridge-based COVID-19 molecular test kits that provide rapid results. The pilot program will assess how to best integrate diagnostic technology developed by Cue Health, Inc., into strategies for disease surveillance and infection control in institutions such as nursing homes.
Used successfully as the primary molecular point-of-care (POC) test to control the spread of COVID-19 within in the National Basketball Association “bubble,” as well as by leading healthcare providers in the U.S., the nasal swab POC test generates results in about 20 minutes. Currently, molecular COVID-19 tests provided by HHS must be sent to a laboratory for interpretation, which can take two to three days.
Following up on this week’s launch of Amazon’s online Pharmacy, the Drug Channels blog comments that
This announcement is much less disruptive than it appears to be. Amazon is copying the GoodRx discount card model—including GoodRx’s partnership with Express Scripts. At the same time, Amazon is launching a mail pharmacy that will accept insurance and be in PBM pharmacy networks. Amazon’s actions are another negative headwind for retail pharmacies, but not a fatal blow to the system. Perhaps Amazon will one day become a true disrupter. For now, Amazon is choosing to join the drug channel, not fundamentally change it.
Healthcare Dive lets us in other expert insights on this development.
In other prescription drug coverage news, the Wall Street Journal reports this evening that
The Trump administration is planning on Friday [/ tomorrow] to roll out two final rules aimed at lowering drug prices—one curbing rebates paid to middlemen in Medicare and another pegging the prices of certain prescription drugs in the U.S. to their prices in other developed countries, according to a person familiar with the planning. The plans, slated to be announced in the White House Rose Garden, have been a signature pledge of President Trump’s since his 2016 election campaign. Both rules are expected to be final, meaning they have completed the required public comment period and can take effect immediately.
“Immediately” in this setting would not prevent the incoming Biden Administration from putting the brakes on the iniative without trouble, in the FEHBlog’s opinion.
According to Fierce Healthcare, “While insurers are set to weather COVID-19’s financial storm, an inability to keep up with how the pandemic is changing healthcare will be credit-negative in the long term, according to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service. The coronavirus pandemic has put a spotlight on chronic conditions, the need for continued investment in telehealth and virtual care and the drive toward value-based care, according to the report. Health plans that are able to adapt to these changing trends are far better positioned for long-term success, Moody’s said.”
More good COVID-19 vaccine news today. The Wall Street Journal reports that following up on Monday’s favorable initial report on the phase three study of their COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer and BioNTech announced the final report on that study.
Pfizer Inc. said it will ask health regulators to authorize its experimental Covid-19 vaccine within days, after reporting the shot was 95% effective in its pivotal study and showed signs of being safe. The company’s plans, announced Wednesday, mean the shot is on track to go into distribution by the end of the year, if the regulators permit.
Pfizer and BioNTech said that of the nearly 44,000 adults in the U.S. and in other countries who took part in the study, 170 developed Covid-19 with at least one symptom. Out of those, just eight had taken the vaccine, while 162 had received a placebo. The resulting 95% effectiveness rate puts the shot’s performance on par with shingles and measles vaccines. It is also consistent with last week’s peek at how it did in an analysis of the first 94 subjects to fall sick.
The infected subjects included 10 severe cases of Covid-19, with nine in the placebo group and one in the vaccine group. The vaccine was effective across different ages, races and ethnic groups, and it was more than 94% effective in adults over 65 years old, the companies said. About 42% of the trial participants are from racial or ethnic minority groups, while 41% are ages 56 to 85, the companies said.
Moreover, medical device manufacturer Lucira Health announced today that
Late yesterday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized the first prescription molecular diagnostic test for COVID-19 that can be performed entirely at home. The FDA issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) to Lucira Health, Inc. for its single-use, user-friendly COVID-19 All-In-One Test Kit that can produce a positive or negative result at home within 30 minutes. Lucira’s test kit is differentiated by its simple ‘swab, stir and detect’ design. Clinical trials showed 100% of patients were successfully able to perform the Lucira test in about two minutes. That is significantly faster than labs which currently take two to seven days to generate similarly accurate test results. The Lucira™ COVID-19 All-In-One Test Kit is expected to be available to patients served by Sutter Health in Northern California, and Cleveland Clinic Florida in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, in the near future. By early spring 2021, it is expected to be available nationally through health care providers.
Healthcare Dive indicates that the initial price for the test will be about $50.
Benefits Pro points us to a CIGNA report titled “Health and Wellness in Workplaces: What Works? ROI Analysis of Health and Wellness Interventions” which “is the largest global review of the impact of workplace wellness interventions, according to researchers.” Top line findings are that focused wellness programs deliver the greatest impact for employers and that mental health interventions yield the most significant return on the employer’s investment.
Fierce Healthcare reports that the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates is on the warpath against employer sponsored high deductible plans. “In 2010, about 25.3% of people were enrolled in a high-deductible plan, with that number rising to 40% in 2016.” The article overlooks the important fact that participating in such a plan is the key to opening a triple tax free health savings account.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said Tuesday that as many as 20 million people could get coronavirus vaccinations around the end of the year.
He said that by that time there could be as many as 25 million doses of vaccine available from Pfizer and 15 million doses available from Moderna. The vaccination takes two shots so that would mean 20 million people could get protection.
He said it could happen by the end of December, or early January if the timeline slips a bit. “That’s what we’re anticipating and hoping,” he said in an interview at the 2020 STAT Summit.
The strong early results for two leading Covid-19 vaccines have implications that go far beyond the current pandemic: They suggest the time has come for a gene-based technology that could provide new treatments for cancer, heart disease and other infectious diseases.
The [previously] unproven technology, named messenger RNA after the molecular couriers that deliver genetic instructions, has long eluded researchers. An mRNA vaccine has never been cleared by regulators. It is now the basis for Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. and its partner BioNTech SE. * * *
The mRNA vaccines’ early success [with COVID-19] “gives us some encouragement for the technology for other vaccine targets in the future,” said Dr. Mark Mulligan, director of the Vaccine Center at NYU Langone Health.
One of the advantages of mRNA vaccines, [Biotech co-founder] Dr. [Ugur] Sahin said, is that they can be quickly adjusted so vaccines can better respond to an eventual decline in immunity or virus mutations, which could render other vaccines less effective. Dr. Sahin said that regulator authorization [of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines] could potentially lead to a “whole new category of medicines.”
Hope springs eternal.
Healthcare Dive informs us that “After years of speculation, Amazon finally announced Tuesday that it will sell and deliver prescription drugs on its online platform, Amazon Pharmacy.” Moreover —
Here’s a key distinction in how Amazon Pharmacy will operate: “Before checking out customers can compare their insurance co-pay, the price without insurance, or the available savings with the new Prime prescription savings benefit to choose their lowest price option,” Amazon said.
A previously vexing problem for patients was that sometimes prescription drugs would be cheaper using cash, or without using insurance coverage. But pharmacists were sometimes barred from alerting patients to the discrepancy due to “gag clauses.” In 2018, Congress passed a bill to ban gag clauses in certain plans.
Amazon Pharmacy shoppers will be able to input their insurance information and their clinicians will be able to send prescription information directly to the Amazon Pharmacy.
Speaking of market disruption, Plan Sponsor advises us about the growing popularity of “individual coverage health reimbursement arrangements (ICHRAs) to provide their workers with tax-preferred funds to pay for the cost of health insurance coverage that workers purchase in the individual market [/ the ACA marketplace].” This is the one major Trump Administration reform to the Affordable Care Act that did not attract opposition, in court or elsewhere, because it unquestionably strengthened the ACA marketplace.
On the healthcare studies front –
The National Library of Medicine informs us about the susbtantial patient safety benefits of including the patient’s photograph in the top line of their electronic health record when used at healthcare facilities, particularly emergency rooms
The National Institutes of Health announced $21 million of funding into research examining racial and ethnic disparities in pregnancy-related complications and deaths.
Research will include original, innovative, and multidisciplinary efforts to advance the understanding, prevention, and reduction of pregnancy-related complications and deaths among disproportionately affected women. This includes women from racial and ethnic minority groups, women with underprivileged socioeconomic status, and those living in underserved rural settings.
The racial disparities in pregnancy-related mortality are stark: respectively, African American and American Indian/Alaska Native women are 3.2 and 2.3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than are white women. In the case of African American women, the disparity increases with age. Black women under 20 are 1.5 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than are white women in the same age group, but black women ages 30-34 are 4.3 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than are white women ages 30-34. Approximately two thirds of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable, underscoring the need for more research to improve the maternal health outcomes for women before, during, and after delivery.
In addition to maternal deaths, over 25,000 women each year experience severe maternal morbidity(link is external) (SMM), requiring unexpected short- or long-term life-saving healthcare interventions. Like maternal mortality, SMM has a high rate of preventability. All racial and ethnic minority populations have higher rates of SMM than do white women.
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