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What We’re Reading: Health Insurance Rebates; More States Legalize Fentanyl Test Strips; Reanimated Hearts Used for Transplants
The possibility of individual Americans receiving a health insurance rebate is slim; more states are legalizing fentanyl test strips to fight soaring opioid deaths; reanimated hearts donated after death work just as well for transplants, study finds.
Possible Windfall in Health Insurance Rebates
Former Democratic Senator Al Franken recently posted on Twitter that Americans will receive “$1.1 B in rebates from health insurance companies this year” because of a provision he wrote into the Affordable Care Act, according to KFF Health News. While there will likely be rebates in 2023, most likely along the lines of $1.1 billion, the chance that these rebates will go directly to individuals is quite small. The provision, known as the medical loss ratio, refers to how much insurers spend on medical care for their enrollees vs other administrative costs and aims to curb those costs.
More States Legalizing Fentanyl Test Strips to Fight Opioid Deaths
Legalizing fentanyl test strips could bring the number of overdose deaths connected to the drug down, say advocates, by helping more people understand the possible lethality of their drugs, reported the Associated Press. Until this spring, test strip use was technically illegal in Ohio, which has now joined at least 20 other states whose lawmakers officially decriminalized the strips since Rhode Island became the first in 2018. Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Kentucky, and Mississippi also jumped on the bandwagon. The CDC recommends fentanyl test strips as a low-cost way of helping prevent drug overdoses.
Reanimated Hearts Donated Postmortem Work For Transplants, Study Finds
A new study found that an innovative method of heart transplantation that uses machines to reanimate donor hearts from people who have died after circulatory death is just as effective as traditional heart transplantation, according to STAT. If widely used in the US, the procedure could increase the donor pool by 30%. The adjusted 6-month survival rate of patients undergoing the new technique was 94%, compared with 90% among patients who underwent the traditional method using hearts from brain-death donors, according to the study published Wednesday.
The Breakdown: Breast Cancer Research Awareness Day
August 19th 2025Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in the US. In light of Breast Cancer Research Awareness Day, The American Journal of Managed Care® breaks down the most recent advancements in breast cancer prevention, screening, and therapies.
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Oral GC Dose Tapering for MG Linked to Efgartigimod Initiation
August 25th 2025Using US claims data, the authors evaluated oral glucocorticoid (GC) use at 5 time points during their retrospective analysis: 3 months before starting efgartigimod and 3, 6, 9, and 12 months after starting efgartigimod.
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Hope on the Horizon for Underserved Patients With Multiple Myeloma: Joseph Mikhael, MD
August 12th 2025Explore the disparities in multiple myeloma treatment and how new initiatives aim to improve clinical trial participation among underrepresented patients during a conversation with Joseph Mikhael, MD, MEd, FRCPC, FACP, FASCO, chief medical officer of the International Myeloma Foundation.
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