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What We're Reading: Dietary Supplement Action; AI in Healthcare; Border Crossings for Medicine
An FDA announcement that it would step up oversight of the $50-billion-a-year dietary supplements industry was met with mixed reaction; a group of researchers in the United States and China are testing artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically diagnose common childhood conditions after processing data; close to 1 million people in California alone cross the border to Mexico annually for healthcare, including to buy prescription drugs.
Reaction to FDA Dietary Supplement Move Mixed
An FDA announcement that it would step up oversight of the $50-billion-a-year dietary supplements industry was met with mixed reaction, The Washington Post reported. Some said the move is little more than a public relations effort, while others welcomed the effort to crack down on companies making false and misleading claims about health benefits or selling products adulterated with unlisted drug ingredients.
US, Chinese Researchers Working on AI Diagnostic System
A group of researchers in the United States and China are testing artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically diagnose common childhood conditions after processing the patient’s symptoms, history, lab results, and other clinical data, The New York Times reported. The AI system was highly accurate, according to findings. The report noted that the effort was aided by the fact that China’s privacy norms put fewer restrictions on the sharing of digital data drawn from a large Chinese population.
Californians Cross the Border to Mexico for Cheaper Prescription Drugs
Close to 1 million people in California alone cross the border to Mexico annually for healthcare, including to buy prescription drugs, Kaiser Health News reported. In Mexico, one type of insulin costs $600 for a 3-month supply compared with the $3700 price tag in the United States. The FDA largely looks the other way for people traveling and bringing medications back, as long as it is no more than a 90-day supply, but that could change at any time, experts said.
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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