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What We're Reading: Insys Opioid Lawsuits; Birth Control Mandate; Uninsured Virginians
States Sue Insys Over Opioid Marketing
Massachusetts reaching a settlement with Insys Therapeutics over the company’s marketing of its opioid, Subsys, may have opened the door to more lawsuits. According to The Wall Street Journal, New Jersey has now filed a lawsuit against Insys claiming that the company marketed its painkiller for widespread use when it was approved to treat serious cancer pain. New Jersey is claiming that the company is responsible for a woman who died after being prescribed Subsys for fibromyalgia.
Rolling Back the Birth Control Mandate
The requirement that employers cover birth control in health insurance plans is being rolled back. The Trump administration announced it would allow for more exemptions for those who cite moral or religious objections to providing coverage of birth control, reported The New York Times. The Trump administration, in writing the new rules, notes that the Affordable Care Act actually does not explicitly require that birth control is covered. Getting rid of the requirement could cause hundreds of thousands of women to lose access to free birth control.
Virginians Eligible for Medicaid Staying Uninsured
Approximately 90,000 Virginians are eligible for healthcare assistance programs, but have remained uninsured. A new report has found that of those eligible, 60,000 are children who can be signed up for Medicaid or the state’s program for children. In 2015, there were a total of 747,000 uninsured people in Virginia. The state has not expanded the Medicaid program, which would make even more people eligible for coverage.
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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