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The Price of Prevention: Vaccine Costs Are Soaring
Vaccination prices have gone from single digits to sometimes triple digits in the last two decades, creating dilemmas for doctors and their patients as well as straining public health budgets.
There is little that Dr. Lindsay Irvin has not done for the children’s vaccines in her office refrigerator: She remortgaged her home to afford their rising prices. She packed them in ice chests and moved them when her office flooded this year. She pays a company to monitor the fridge in case the temperature rises.
“The security company can call me any time of the day or night so I can go save my vaccines,” said Dr. Irvin, a pediatrician. Those in the refrigerator recently cost $70,000, she said — “more than I paid for four years of medical school.”
Vaccination prices have gone from single digits to sometimes triple digits in the last two decades, creating dilemmas for doctors and their patients as well as straining public health budgets. Here in San Antonio and elsewhere, some doctors have stopped offering immunizations because they say they cannot afford to buy these potentially lifesaving preventive treatments that insurers often reimburse poorly, sometimes even at a loss.
Read the full story here: http://nyti.ms/1ocGWc7
Source: The New York Times
Varied Access: The Pharmacogenetic Testing Coverage Divide
February 18th 2025On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with the author of a study published in the February 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® to uncover significant differences in coverage decisions for pharmacogenetic tests across major US health insurers.
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For Neuromuscular Disease Community, an Era of Opportunities and Threats
March 17th 2025Robert Califf, MD, former commissioner of the FDA, delivered a keynote address at the 2025 Muscular Dystrophy Association Clinical & Scientific Conference that highlighted the enormous opportunities for progress in neuromuscular disease care amid a changing policy environment.
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The Impact of Cost Sharing on High-Value Care
March 14th 2025Michael Chernew, PhD, professor of health care policy and director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation Lab, Harvard Medical School, shares how cost-sharing policies shape access to critical health care services and influence value-based insurance design.
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Oz Confirmation Hearing Probes Vision for Medicaid but Coalesces Around Well-Being
March 14th 2025Mehmet Oz, MD, the nominee to lead CMS under the Trump administration, testified in a confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, where he found common ground on improving outcomes through healthier lifestyle choices but encountered repeated questions on potential Medicaid cuts.
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