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What We're Reading: Prescription Drugs 16.7% of Overall Healthcare Spending
What we're reading, March 9, 2016: prescription drugs accounted for 16.7% of US healthcare spending in 2015; the FDA will allow Amarin to promote a prescription fish oil for off-label uses; and racial disparities for infant mortality persist.
Prescription drugs accounted for 16.7% of all US healthcare spending in 2015, according to a report from HHS. STAT reported that rising drug prices and more expensive medicines coming to market drove the increase in prescription drug spending, which had only been 7% of healthcare spending back in the 1990s. Through 2018, drug spending is expected to outpace the growth in overall healthcare spending.
The FDA has reached a settlement with Amarin to allow its prescription fish-oil drug to be promoted for unapproved uses. The FDA said that the settlement was specific to this particular case and would not mark a new legal precedent, according to the Associated Press. However, the settlement opens up the opportunity for companies to pursue more aggressive legal action against the FDA.
Racial disparities in infant mortality persist despite a 13% drop in the national infant mortality rate. USA Today reported that black infants are dying at a rate that is more than twice the rate of white babies and black mothers are twice as likely to have expensive premature births. Extending nurse home visits to all eligible mothers would cost $60 billion over 10 years but would save $21 billion after that.
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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