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What We're Reading: COVID-19 Relief Bill Update; FDA Expedites Trial Process; Hospitalization Risk Reduced
House Budget Committee advances $1.9 trillion coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) relief bill; FDA will expedite trials examining booster shots against COVID-19 variants; 1 shot of Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine cuts hospitalization risk by 75%.
House Panel Advances $1.9T COVID-19 Relief Bill
Yesterday, the House Budget Committee advanced President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) relief bill on a 19-16 party-line vote. Reported by The Hill, the bill must now be marked up by the House Rules Committee before consideration on the House floor this week. If approved by the Senate, the bill would include $1400 stimulus checks, extensions to emergency unemployment benefits, funding for vaccinations and testing, $129 billion for schools, increases to child tax credits and earned income tax credits, and a plan to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025.
FDA Recommends Expedited Trials for COVID-19 Booster Shots
Reported by The Wall Street Journal, the FDA announced yesterday that it will expedite trials examining vaccine booster shots against variants of COVID-19 and will not require large clinical trials of the new shots’ efficacy compared with placebo. Seeking to fast-track booster doses amid the emerging threat of variants from South Africa and the United Kingdom, the agency also provided new guidelines for makers of diagnostic tests and monoclonal-antibody drugs. This new guidance will focus on how those companies can best adapt their products to address virus mutations now prominent in the United States.
One Vaccine Dose Cuts Hospitalization by 75%
Reported by POLITICO, English and Scottish public health officials announced yesterday that data suggest hospitalization and death rates will fall by approximately 75% in people who receive a single dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which was noted to potentially be an underestimate. In more at-risk groups, such as people over the age of 80, 1 dose provided 57% efficacy at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 after 3 to 4 weeks, with both doses shown to be 85% effective. Notably, elderly populations were found to be 40% less likely to be hospitalized and 56% less at risk of death when infected after vaccination compared with nonvaccinated individuals.
Urticaria Diagnosis Challenged by Overlapping Pruritic Skin Conditions
April 23rd 2025Urticaria is complicated to diagnose by its symptomatic overlap with other skin conditions and the frequent misclassification in literature of distinct pathologies like vasculitic urticaria and bullous pemphigus.
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New Research Challenges Assumptions About Hospital-Physician Integration, Medicare Patient Mix
April 22nd 2025On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Brady Post, PhD, lead author of a study published in the April 2025 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care®, challenges the claim that hospital-employed physicians serve a more complex patient mix.
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Personalized Care Key as Tirzepatide Use Expands Rapidly
April 15th 2025Using commercial insurance claims data and the US launch of tirzepatide as their dividing point, John Ostrominski, MD, Harvard Medical School, and his team studied trends in the use of both glucose-lowering and weight-lowering medications, comparing outcomes between adults with and without type 2 diabetes.
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ACOs’ Focus on Rooting Out Fraud Aligns With CMS Vision Under Oz
April 23rd 2025Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are increasingly playing the role of data sleuths as they identify and report trends of anomalous billing in hopes of salvaging their shared savings. This mission dovetails with that of CMS, which under the new administration plans to prioritize rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse.
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