Diabetes

Taking aim at payment models for patients on dialysis is the latest attempt to target high-cost areas of Medicare spending.

Intense lobbying and charges of bias surround the late efforts to influence what goes into the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. A recommendation from an advisory committee to eat less red and processed meat has fueled most of the controversy.

The PBM declined to list what discounts it had negotiated, but said it expected to spend $750 million on this cholesterol-lowering class in 2016.

The recent overview of obesity from the Trust for America's Health revealed extremely high percentages of Native Americans are overweight and obese, especially in states where they live in remote locations.

The evidence of weight-loss improving overall well-being and predisposition to chronic as well as acute conditions is mounting. We now need coverage policies that can help patients take advantage of weight loss procedures.

The PCSK9 drugs are stirring up a lot of attention, primarily around how to restrict access. But, no one is talking about how to best manage the patient's needs.

A study reports that despite the steady growth in hospital-based palliative care programs, access is sketchy and is driven by geographic location and hospital ownership.

The technique deploys several strategies to reduce cancer risk. It is being evaluated in mouse models but researchers are already looking ahead to human studies.

An earlier plan from Governor Gary Herbert that was paid for with existing state funds was rejected by the legislature. The current plan would add 95,000 Utahns to Medicaid, with hospitals paying most of the state's share after 2017.

Researchers say the results may help physicians better target screening for obese youth.

Researchers in China and the United States have developed a predictive model capable of forecasting which patients will account for either small or large proportions of healthcare resource utilization in the next 6 months.

All 3 methods caused patients to lose weight, but 2 were more likely to produce remission in type 2 diabetes.

A study published in BMJ measured the prevalence, annual compensation, and beneficial stock ownership of directors from publicly traded healthcare companies who had academic affiliations.

This study extends value-based insurance design concepts in testing the impact on blood pressure control of rewards that provided negative co-payments for blood pressure medication.

This study tests the impact on blood pressure control of a reward that lowered co-payments for blood pressure medication to $0.

Results presented at the American Diabetes Association in June showed no CV risk or benefit and no risk of pancreatic injury, an issue that has been of particular concern to FDA.

The recommendations for improving quality care in Medicaid track recent trends in psychiatric and diabetes care, which recognize the connection between physical and mental health.

The technology was approved by FDA in June and unveiled at the Scientific Sessions of the American Diabetes Association.

Eighty-six million US adults are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Without prevention, there will be a drastic increase in the number of Americans who will develop type 2 diabetes.

Many hoped the 2013 declaration by the American Medical Association that obesity is a disease would open the door for payer coverage of pharmacotherapy to treat it. While that did not happen right way, a new commentary in Evidence-Based Diabetes Management by Ted Kyle, RPh, MBA, and Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, MPA, outlines how the tide appears to be turning for coverage of evidence-based treatment.

Peter S. Amenta, MD, PhD, spent 8 years as the dean of Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School during a period of tremendous growth and change.

The research by the group from Spain is the latest effort to link sleep patterns, or disruption of sleep, to the development of type 2 diabetes.

Fingernail tests could offer a solution to diabetes testing in the developing world, and a faster test for gestational diabetes could diagnose this condition earlier in pregnancy.

A JAMA Internal Medicine study found the terms "breakthrough" and "promising" raised people's expectations on the drug's performance as opposed to when the drugs were described as having met the breakthrough criteria.

Younger patients and those newly diagnosed were more likely to not receive eye exams than older persons with diabetes.

Screening in a primary care setting may help managed care plans avoid long-term costs of complications of type 2 diabetes.

Hillary Clinton unveiled a plan in Iowa that features a $250 per month cap on drug costs for patients with chronic conditions. This comes 2 weeks after her chief rival for the Democratic nomination, US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, introduced a bill aimed at reining in drug costs. In the summer, The American Journal of Managed Care said polling showed that rising drug costs were poised to become a major issue in the 2016 campaign.