Policy

This study found extensive variation in general internal medicine physician prices and that high-priced physicians provided fewer low-value services but had higher spending on these services.

In an effort to bolster development of treatments for rare diseases, the FDA announced the creation of the new Accelerating Rare disease Cures (ARC) program.

In a session at the 2022 Asembia Specialty Pharmacy Summit, Jayne Hornung, chief clinical officer at Managed Markets Insights & Technology (MMIT), outlined factors driving payer hesitation when it comes to covering prescription digital therapeutics.

Lower-salary employees in high-deductible health plans underutilize outpatient care and overutilize emergency departments.

Holding other factors constant, the authors find that older providers prescribe significantly more opioids, with the gap between older and younger providers increasing from 2010 to 2015.

Future quality conversations must recognize what the pandemic has illustrated over the past 2 years—that patients who were in the most dire need of health care, including those with multiple chronic conditions, had the least amount of access, said Jonathan Blum, MPP, the principal deputy administrator and chief operating officer of CMS.

Limited evidence from a literature review suggests that co-pay assistance was associated with improved treatment persistence/adherence across various diseases, with indirect evidence suggesting improvements in clinical outcomes.

At the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) 2022 Annual Meeting Wednesday, participants heard about some unexpected insights arising from a workshop held this week between patients and pharmacists who are creating a patient-centered outcomes research agenda focused on addressing social determinants of health (SDOH) in the community pharmacy setting.

Using socioeconomic status (SES) as their primary exposure, investigators from McGill University, University of Manitoba, Institut National de Santé Publique du Québec, and Laval University investigated reasons behind insulin pump uptake disparities in the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Québec.

Value-based payments were a benefit during the pandemic, but it remains to be seen if patients are interested in keeping those changes in care delivery as the pandemic recedes, said Jayson Slotnik, partner, Health Policy Strategies, Inc.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Ari D. Panzer, BS, lead author and researcher, then at Tufts Medical Center—now at Duke University—discusses the findings from his team’s investigation into coverage decisions by health plan insurers of the 66 drugs approved by the FDA in 2018.

Scott Gottlieb, MD, and Adam Fein, PhD, discussed potential fallout of the FDA Aduhelm approval and lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of the 5800 patients included in study, 20% were Black, which the researchers say adequately represents disease incidence among the population.

Patricia Deverka, MD, MS, senior researcher, deputy director at the Center for Translational and Policy Research and Precision Medicine, University of California San Francisco, explains what multicancer early detection tests currently exist and the research needed to understand their clinical utility.

A new drug has been approved for obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM); Oklahoma enacts a strict abortion ban; whistleblower claims alarms had been raised about Abbott baby formula contamination.

The FDA proposed product standards prohibiting menthol flavor in cigarettes and all flavoring in cigars as part of the Cancer Moonshot initiative.

Avalere is presenting at Asembia’s 2022 Specialty Pharmacy Summit, and Ryan Urgo, MPAP, managing director, health policy, discusses possible drug pricing policy options on the table for the Biden administration to consider in a midterm election year.

Chronic kidney disease is the fastest-growing noncontagious disease in the United States. On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Mike Spigler, vice president of patient support and education for the American Kidney Fund, who is spearheading the Unknown Causes of Kidney Disease Project, which aims to help underserved patients get to the root cause of their kidney disease, while also helping to solve this mystery for a broader patient population.

There may be a small, but not overwhelming, benefit for certain individuals aged 40 to 59 years who have a slightly elevated risk of future cardiovascular disease (CVD) to start taking aspirin, according to an update released by the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).

To mark the nation's 52nd Earth Day, Robert Feder, MD, outlines how climate change will exacerbate mental health challenges and the importance of global efforts to address the crisis.

This investigation focused on use of additional services and incidence of new diagnoses among women who underwent a breast cancer screening MRI—having a low or average risk of the cancer—compared with a matched cohort who underwent mammography.

Joseph Alvarnas, MD, vice president of government affairs at City of Hope and chief clinical adviser of AccessHope in Duarte, California, spoke March 4 at the closing session of the Association for Community Cancer Centers (ACCC) Annual Meeting & Cancer Business Summit in Washington, DC.

Coverage from the Community Oncology Alliance 2022 Community Oncology Conference, held March 17-18 in Kissimmee, Florida.

The Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) and researchers at NORC at the University of Chicago released a white paper that looks at the future of affordability and sustainability of drug development for rare disease through the lens of 4 policy proposals.

Editor’s Note: After this issue of Evidence-Based Oncology™ went to press, Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation announced the $100 million, 5-year initiative will now be called the Robert A. Winn Diversity in Clinical Trials Award Program. The program will also receive a $14 million donation from Gilead Sciences, Inc., over the next 4 years.

Using data from the National HIV Surveillance System, the National Center for Health Statistics, and the US Census, a team from the CDC investigated lifetime HIV risk in the United States.

In this contributor piece, the connection between the complexities of mental health and heart disease in at-risk communities is explored, with the authors stressing the importance of risk factor evaluation and multidisciplinary patient education from both mental and physical health providers.

This paper examines whether the Affordable Care Act reduced the disparities in the use of clinical preventive services, chronic disease prevalence, and the number of uninsured.

This new study used data on women with stage 0 to II breast cancer to investigate their long-term quality of life (QOL) as it related to choice of surgery and the decision to undergo adjuvant radiation therapy.