Starting July 1, credit-reporting giants will remove certain medical debts; AstraZeneca’s Evusheld was shown to reduce the viral load of subvariants BA.1, BA1.1, and BA.2; about 4% of middle school students and 13% of high school students use some type of tobacco product, according to a report.
Credit-reporting giants Equifax, Experian and TransUnion announced Friday they will remove credit stains created by certain medical debts starting July 1, 2022. As reported by The New York Times, these changes include removing black marks for people who paid their medical debt after it went to collections and having new unpaid medical debts appear a full year after being sent to collections rather than 6 months after. Starting in 2023, the companies will also exclude unpaid medical debts less than $500. According to the credit-reporting companies, these changes will remove up to 70% of medical debts currently affecting consumers’ credit reports and scores.
AstraZeneca said Monday its COVID-19 antibody treatment, Evusheld, neutralized Omicron variants in an independent study, Reuters reported. The study—which has yet to be peer reviewed—showed that Evusheld reduced the viral load of subvariants BA.1, BA1.1, and BA.2, and limited lung inflammation. Evusheld is a combination monoclonal antibody treatment of tixagevimab and cilgavimab and has received FDA emergency use authorization but is not yet approved.
According to findings from the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey, 2.55 million middle school and high school students in the United States use some type of tobacco product, equating to about 4% of middle school students and 13% of high school students. As reported by The Washington Post, these data include the use of electronic, smokeless, and combustible products, and were collected from a nationally representative sample of more than 20,000 students from 279 public and private schools. E-cigarettes were the most commonly used product, with students citing curiosity and peer pressure for the reasons they began using them, and crediting them for helping to deal with anxiety, stress, and depression. However, smoking tobacco in general has been shown to lead to a wide range of negative health effects and is described as the leading cause of preventable deaths.
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.
Listen
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.
Listen
Integrated CKD Care Model Cuts ED Visits by 30%, Boosts Specialized Treatment
April 21st 2025An analysis of an interdisciplinary care model for managing chronic kidney disease (CKD) shows hospital admissions dropped by 26% and emergency department (ED) visits decreased by 30% after clinic initiation.
Read More