Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, wrote FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, to make clear the intent of the federal “right-to-try” law he authored; the number of opioid prescriptions has fallen by 22% between 2013 and 2017; inadequate record-keeping, policy gaps and limited research are leaving military veterans in limbo and struggling to get care from the Department of Veterans Affairs if their claims for brain injuries are related to the use of weapons in training instead of in combat.
Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, wrote FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, Thursday to make clear the intent of the federal “right-to-try” law he authored, according to STAT. “This law intends to diminish the FDA’s power over people’s lives, not increase it,” he wrote in a letter to Gottlieb following President Trump signing the law this week. Johnson requested a meeting about the implementation of the law. Gottlieb said in an interview with STAT last month that the FDA could still protect patients through the regulatory process; the new law allows patients with life-threatening illnesses to request access to experimental therapies the agency hasn’t approved.
The number of opioid prescriptions has fallen by 22% between 2013 and 2017, according to a report from the American Medical Association. The Hill reported it’s the fifth year in a row that prescriptions have dropped. Between 2016 and 2017, there was a 121% increase in doctors accessing electronic databases that track opioid prescribing. And, as of May, the number of doctors certified to provide buprenorphine rose 42% in the last 12 months.
Inadequate record keeping, policy gaps and limited research are leaving military veterans in limbo and struggling to get care from the Department of Veterans Affairs if their claims for brain injuries are related to the use of weapons in training instead of in combat, The Wall Street Journal reported. The military doesn’t don’t record when or how many rockets are fired in training, leaving veterans without the proof they need of how they were injured.
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.
Read More
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
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.
Read More