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Regulating Private Equity in Health Care: A Strategic Policy Agenda

Private equity’s growing influence on American health care has outpaced regulatory oversight. Stronger policies are necessary to safeguard patients, providers, and care delivery.

Using Natural Language Processing to Classify Social Work Interventions

Natural language processing can be used for automated extraction of social work interventions from electronic health records, thereby supporting social work staffing and resource allocation decisions.

Economic Burden of Joint Disease in Psoriasis: US Claims Analysis

This retrospective claims analysis found that concomitant joint disease in psoriasis is associated with greater health care resource utilization and health care costs than psoriasis alone.

Inappropriate Wrist MRI: Did Guidelines Have an Impact?

This article analyzes the use of MRI in a national sample of patients with wrist pain before and after consensus guideline publication.

Combined Pharmacotherapy and Psychotherapy Impact on Opioid Use Disorder Treatment

The combination of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy is associated with reductions in emergency department visits and inpatient admissions along with lower total cost of care relative to either therapy alone.

How the Win Ratio Benefits Patients With COPD: Sanjay Ramakrishnan, MD

Sanjay Ramakrishnan, MD, senior lecturer, University of Western Australia, breaks down how to communicate the value of dupilumab using patient-centered language and sports metaphors to patients.

Contributor: Medicare’s ACO Model Begins, Kidney Care Cannot Be Left Behind

As CKCC nears its sunset, kidney care leaders urge CMS to preserve a dedicated, nephrologist-led accountable care model for advanced kidney disease.

Physician-Pharmacy Integration in Cancer Care: Pillars of Medically Integrated Pharmacy

The foundation of medically integrated pharmacy includes 7 critical pillars. This commentary focuses on the benefits of 3 of those pillars: abandonment, adherence, and access/affordability.

Limited English Proficiency, Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Cardiovascular Disease, and In-Hospital COVID-19 Outcomes

This study evaluated whether limited English proficiency modifies the association between cardiovascular risk factors or cardiovascular disease and outcomes in patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

Inappropriate Wrist MRI: Did Guidelines Have an Impact?

This article analyzes the use of MRI in a national sample of patients with wrist pain before and after consensus guideline publication.

Discharge Timing and Associations With Outcomes Following Heart Failure Hospitalization

A retrospective multicenter study found that patients with heart failure discharged by noon had higher short- and long-term mortality and increased early readmission rates compared with afternoon discharges.

Calibrating Medicaid Payment to Need for Long-term Services and Supports

Incorporating data from functional status assessments, we developed a Medicaid payment model for long-term services and supports in a community-dwelling population of older adults.

Treatment Modification After Initiating Second-Line Medication for Type 2 Diabetes

Among adults with type 2 diabetes who started noninsulin second-line therapy, most modified treatment within 1 year. Discontinuation was by far the most common modification.

Trends and Disparities in High-Risk Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Utilization

High-risk nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use declined modestly in Virginia during the COVID-19 pandemic but remained prevalent from 2019 to 2021. Demographic disparities reveal distinct opportunities for targeted deprescribing interventions.

Perspectives on Health-Related Social Needs for Medicare Advantage Beneficiaries

Medicare Advantage plans have varied motivations, strategies, and aspirations for addressing health-related social needs among home health beneficiaries, highlighting a need to expand the scope of supplemental benefits.

Hands Down, COVID-19 Will Change Medical Practice

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has challenged us to incorporate technology into engaging, interacting with, and caring for patients, using televisits and video conferencing in ways that have previously been resisted or derided.

Subjective and Objective Impacts of Ambulatory AI Scribes

Although the vast majority of physicians using an artificial intelligence (AI) scribe perceived a reduction in documentation time, those with the most actual time savings had higher relative baseline levels of documentation time.

Contributor: Congress Must Fix Patient Protection Statute Upended by Supreme Court

The author, the dean of the College of Ethnic Studies at California State University Los Angeles, says a Supreme Court ruling could upend insurance protections for patients with kidney diseases, disproportionately hurting those who are Black, Hispanic, Asian, and other diverse ethnicities.

Features of Health Care Interventions Associated With Reduced Services and Spending

This study identifies several factors shared by locally defined delivery system innovations that have been shown to reduce service use and lower health care spending.

Factors That Increase Utilization Management Risk: A Proof of Concept

A score was developed to measure patient risk from payer utilization management policies and its relationship to real-world US commercial payer utilization management policies.

An Accelerated Hospital Observation Pathway to Reduce Length of Stay for Patients With COVID-19

For select patients hospitalized due to COVID-19, an academic urban hospital implemented an observation pathway that incorporated mobile health technology, reducing hospital length of stay by more than 2 days.

The Biosimilar Shift: Trending Infliximab Biosimilar Utilization and Associated Cost Savings for Commercial Insurance

Infliximab biosimilars created price competition causing insurance claims costs for infliximab originator and infliximab biosimilars to decrease, generating significant savings to the health care system.

Economic Burden of Joint Disease in Psoriasis: US Claims Analysis

This retrospective claims analysis found that concomitant joint disease in psoriasis is associated with greater health care resource utilization and health care costs than psoriasis alone.

Collaborative Care Implementation: Lessons Learned

The authors drafted a “Shared Values of Collaborative Care” document with fundamental principles to make better group decisions in implementing collaborative care.

Study Reinforces Effectiveness of HD-Trivalent Influenza Vaccines

High-dose trivalent flu vaccine was associated with a reduced risk of hospitalization and emergency department visits for pneumonia or influenza in adults aged 65 and above, according to a recent study.

Patient and Physician Perceptions of a Hypercholesterolemia Safety-Net Program

Patients’ misperceptions of statins and physicians’ limited knowledge of a hypercholesterolemia safety-net program warrant additional interventions to reduce barriers and improve care.

Prevalence, Resource Utilization, and Economic Impact of Kidney Function and Proteinuria in Patients With Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis

Medicare Value-Based Approaches and Care Use Among Commercially Insured Adults

Penetration of Medicare Shared Savings Program accountable care organizations and Medicare Advantage was not associated with substantive changes in health care use among commercial enrollees.

Cancellations in Primary Care in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System

This article examines the prevalence of unused primary care appointments in the Veterans Affairs Health Care System.

Ensifentrine Shows Promise as Add-On, Stand-Alone Therapy in COPD: M. Bradley Drummond, MD, MHS

M. Bradley Drummond, MD, MHS, professor of medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, shares promising results of ensifentrine in helping patients with insufficient chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) control.