Laura Joszt, MA

At the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) Annual Meeting, held March 27-30, 2017, in Denver, Colorado, the cost of healthcare was on everyone’s minds and was a common thread in most sessions.

New targeted therapies reduce waste and identify patients that will benefit most, but their high price tags have left the healthcare industry scrambling to figure out how to pay for these treatments and cures.

In a session covering the future of the business of healthcare in the United States, Kevin Grabenstatter, managing director for L.E.K. Consulting, asserted that healthcare is an unsustainably big business, which means that change is coming.

The move away from fee-for-service has driven some health plans to embrace value-based care contracts and accountable care organizations. During a session at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy Annual Meeting, held March 27-30, 2017, in Denver, Colorado, panelists outlined how the marketplace has evolved.

The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy Annual Meeting kicked off on March 28, 2017, in Denver, Colorado, with a look at the specialty pharmaceutical pipeline with Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, senior clinical consultant for emerging therapeutics at Express Scripts.

The majority of costs associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are associated with hospitalizations, and a new study in the International Journal of COPD set out to determine the exact drivers of high costs among hospitalized patients with COPD.

While the orphan drug market has been growing, a new study argues that the current unmet needs of patients with rare disease proves that current incentives are not efficiently stimulating orphan drug development.

After weeks of negotiations and last-minute drama, the House GOP has pulled its Obamacare replacement bill after it became clear that there were not enough votes to pass it.

As part of Republicans’ fast and furious push to repeal the Affordable Care Act, there is a vote scheduled today in the House of Representatives on the American Health Care Act. However, there have been serious doubts in the days leading up to the Thursday vote that there were enough votes in the House to pass the bill.

The Republican healthcare law repeals several provisions in former President Barack Obama’s health law; however, while the GOP's American Health Care Act does provide financial assistance, similar to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Americans will find that those dollars don’t go as far as they did under the ACA.

Home visits by teams led by registered nurses or lay health workers can reduce costs and utilization of services, such as emergency department visits and hospitalizations, according to a paper published in Health Affairs.

The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) has come out strongly against a bill that would provide employers with insight into workers’ personal medical and genetic information.

Difficulty in making pricing and reimbursement decisions for rare diseases has prevented patients from having universal access to new medicines despite increased investment in their research and development. In Europe, a group has proposed 9 principles to guide value assessment, pricing, and funding.

HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD, continued to downplay the Congressional Budget Office’s report on the GOP healthcare bill, promoted how the plan gives Americans more choice, and clarified an earlier statement made about the financial health of patients during a CNN town hall moderated by Wolf Blitzer and Dana Bash.

For the first time, the rate of drug price increases has surpassed the increase of the cost of hospitalizations, which is an important turning point, said Charles J. Fazio, MD, medical director of HealthPartners, Inc, during a panel discussion at America’s Health Insurance Plans’ National Health Policy Conference.

The FDA has approved Novartis’ ribociclib (Kisqali) for treatment of postmenopausal women with hormone receptor positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 negative (HR+/HER2-) advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

President Donald Trump is expected to name Scott Gottlieb, MD, a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, to lead the FDA, according to reports. Gottlieb would replace Robert Califf, MD, who only took over the position February 2016 and stepped down less than a year later in January 2017.

With costs of care being more closely scrutinized, there has been a proliferation of value frameworks to help guide decision making for treatments. In a blog post for Health Affairs, Robert W. Dubois, MD, PhD, and Kimberly Westrich, MA, both of the National Pharmaceutical Council, provide possible considerations for advancing the field of value frameworks.

During a speech at America’s Health Insurance Plans’ National Health Policy Conference, held March 8-9 in Washington, DC, Newt Gingrich, former House speaker, ran through the hurdles Republicans will face in order to get the American Health Care Act passed.

Protecting coverage gains that were made under the Affordable Care Act was one of the top concerns of experts representing insurers, physicians, and hospitals during a panel discussion at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP)’s National Health Policy Conference, held March 8-9 in Washington, DC.

After weeks of leaked drafts and secret, closed door meetings, House Republicans have released the American Health Care Act, their bill to replace former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

The orphan drug market continues its steady and inexorable growth even with increased scrutiny on the high prices of these lifesaving treatments.

Except in cases of critical illness, the intensive care unit may not be the best place for patients experiencing a flare-up of heart failure or their chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or even having a heart attack.

A newer version of House Republicans’ draft bill to replace the Affordable Care Act has been leaked, and it contains a few significant changes to the draft that leaked last week, including a cut-off so wealthy Americans would not be eligible for age-based tax credits.

By the time the opioid epidemic was dominating headlines, it was already out of control. So how did the epidemic sneak up on the United States, and what is being done at the state and federal levels to combat the issue?

During President Donald Trump’s first address to Congress, his call to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act was met with one of the speech's longest and loudest rounds of applause from Republicans.

A recent paper in JAMA Internal Medicine examined the accountable care organization programs in Colorado and Oregon to determine their impacts on spending, access, and utilization.

Topics like cybersecurity are always top of mind at health information technology meetings, but other topics, such as artificial intelligence, also grabbed people’s interest at HIMSS 2017.

As CMS moves forward with the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, it is funding organizations to help solo and small practices succeed under the new payment system.

A new treatment option using stem cell transplants was shown to induce sustained remission of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). More than two-thirds of participants had no signs of progression of disability, relapse of MS symptoms, or new brain lesions after 5 years.