Laura Joszt, MA

Recap of the November 7 meeting of The American Journal of Managed Care®’s The Institute for Value-Based Medicine®. The dinner discussion, “Advancing Quality in Oncology Care” was held in Seattle, Washington.

While the Oncology Care Model is likely not a sustainable mode for oncology care, it will probably inform what payment structure comes next.

Lifestyle factors like exercise, meditation, and alcohol use were inversely associated with depression risk, while smoking significantly predicted depression.

Just because a patient nods and does not ask any questions during a health encounter, does not mean that patient truly understands the information that was communicated. Providers need to examine how they are delivering that information, what terminology they are using, and whether they are checking patients truly understand what they were told.

In fiscal year 2019, there will be approximately $1.9 billion in value-based incentive payments available to hospitals in the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program, which is a budget-neutral program.

The FDA has issued a safety warning that patients who stopped taking Gilenya experienced worsening of multiple sclerosis, compared with before treatment started or during treatment, in rare cases.

Once-daily gilteritinib pills have been approved to treat adult patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a FLT3 mutation. Approximately 25% to 30% of patients with AML have this mutation, which is associated with an aggressive form of the disease and carries a higher risk of relapse.

New reports from the CDC have highlighted troubling increasing trends in suicides and drug overdose rates as life expectancy in the United States declined.

The lag time between the end of a performance period in the Oncology Care Model (OCM) and the release of the full report from CMS, represents a challenge for practices looking to improve.

CMS is moving home health agencies away from a volume-based payment model and to a new value-based payment system. The Patient-Driven Groupings Model would focus on patient needs and rely more heavily on patient characteristics in order to pay for home health services.

FDA has recently approved 2 new treatments for patients age 75 and older who are newly diagnosed with AML and have other chronic health conditions or diseases that may mean they cannot use intensive chemotherapy.

Chronic diseases remain a significant challenge for older Americans, and Humana is using a holistic approach, leveraging value-based reimbursement models, to improve health outcomes and quality measures for the insurer’s Medicare Advantage (MA) members, according to a new Humana report, “The Intersection of Health + Care.”

Patients who have migraine often suffer from coexisting issues, such as sleep difficulties, vertigo, and dizziness. A study evaluating the presence of certain symptoms in patients with migraine indicated that some may have a common pathophysiology.

A new investigational drug has demonstrated high response rates in patients with a rare but highly aggressive blood disease that currently has no approved therapies, according to new research led by investigators at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar plans to ensure his agency handles both the health and the human services, as stated in its name, of Americans. In a recent speech, he hinted that the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation will be doing more work in areas adjacent to healthcare, such as food insecurity, and housing, utility, and transportation needs.

Patients with blood cancers are burdened with higher costs than patients with other cancers, and spending in blood cancers does not return to precancer levels, according to a new study from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Data and collaboration are necessary ingredients to succeed in the transition to value-based care models, and the money saved under these models will create room to pay for unconventional therapies and services in healthcare, according to panelists at The Institute for Value-Based Medicine meeting in Seattle, Washington.

Progress in health around the globe has stagnated in some countries and gotten worse in others as the world faced increases in conflict and terrorism, epidemics, and noncommunicable diseases, according to global disease estimates published in The Lancet.

In addition to voting for representatives whom people thought would align with their healthcare views, voters in multiple states were faced with ballot measures related to healthcare on November 6. Here are 5 healthcare ballot measures and how they fared in the 2018 midterm elections.

Daratumumab, a human CD38-directed monoclonal antibody, has been confirmed as safe in a population of heavily pretreated patients with multiple myeloma who received access to the treatment before the medication was commercially available, according to an early access treatment protocol study published in Cancer.

Effective care coordination can improve health outcomes for patients with chronic conditions, and a new study found that partnering such a model with bundled interventions can lower spending, as well as improve outcomes, for patients in an urban environment.

While survival from leukemia improved among adults from 1995 to 2009, and the survival gap between sexes decreased, the racial gap did not, according to new research published in Cancer.

New guidelines released by the American Academy of Dermatology will help physicians provide the best treatment for more than 1 million Americans living with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The guidelines also highlight the importance of discussions between physicians and patients.

Oregon has approved new policies to continue the transformation of its Medicaid program with a focus on behavioral health, value, and social determinants of health in the state's coordinated care organizations.

In the last decade, testing for and treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) had undergone substantial changes with new testing that can personalize therapy and new agents that provide more clinical benefit.

Lalan Wilfong, MD, moderated a conversation between Robert E. Baird, MD, CEO of Dayton Physicians Network, and Sarah Cevallos, chief revenue cycle officer for Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute, about current and future strategies for Oncology Care Model (OCM) participation, as well as key lessons from the OCM and how they can be applied in other reform models.

A report from RAND Corporation and the American Medical Association (AMA) describes how alternative payment models (APMs) are affecting multiple aspects of physician practice and offers guidance for efforts to improve APMs and help practices succeed in them.

President Donald Trump unveiled the latest steps his administration is taking to help Medicare drive down the costs of prescription drugs with a plan to allow CMS to determine the price it pays for certain drugs based on the prices that other countries pay.

Speakers at the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s Quality Talks meeting discussed challenges to improving healthcare delivery, such as changing behaviors, moving care outside of institutions, and rebuilding trust among marginalized populations.