All News

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

This week, the top managed care news included President Trump's State of the Union address highlighting healthcare; HHS Secretary Alex Azar taking on drug rebates; and physicians asking Congress to fully implement the HITECH Act.

In a webinar presented by the Health Care Transformation Task Force, Hoangmai Pham, MD, MPH, of Anthem, and A. Mark Fendrick, MD, of the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, highlighted how to steed the healthcare industry toward a more consumer-centered model based on value-based insurance design.

In 2010, OxyContin was reformulated and an abuse-deterrent version was introduced, leading to an increase in heroin use and subsequent rise in hepatitis C infection rates.

A new report from the Commonwealth Fund looking at healthcare coverage said the uninsured rate is basically unchanged from before President Trump took office, but that more people, primarily those who have coverage through work, are underinsured. By late fall of 2018, 12.4% of adults were uninsured, down from a high of 20% before the Affordable Care Act became law.

The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®) recently spoke with Om P. Ganda, MD, medical director of the Lipid Clinic and chair of the Clinical Oversight Committee at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, Massachusetts, about the recent publication of the 2018 American College of Cardiology (ACC) Expert Consensus Decision Pathway (ECDP).1

At least 4 chief exeuctive officers from pharmaceutical companies will testify at a Senate drug pricing hearing later this month; Washington becomes the second state to try a subscription-based model for purchasing hepatitis C drugs; and data suggest that marijuana lowers use of alcohol and other drugs.

Patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who are ineligible for intensive chemotherapy tend to have poor health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scores that are independent predictors of poor survival, a recent study reported.

Top Congressional Democrats sent a request to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) asking it to determine if guidance issued by CMS in October 2018 in relation to the Section 1332 waivers states can pursue is subject to legislative oversight. Meanwhile, a report said none of the 8 states that have approval to create a work requirement for their Medicaid expansion pool of beneficiaries have plans to track whether enrollees find jobs or improve their health.

Following President Trump’s second State of the Union address, where he announced plans to end the HIV epidemic, HIV experts from across HHS outlined a comprehensive plan of action focusing on diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and response.

During his second State of the Union address, President Trump highlighted past bipartisan accomplishments, such as legislation to confront the opioid crisis, but also outlined future priorities, such as addressing the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs.

Cancers related to obesity are on the rise, especially among millennials; a right-to-try advocate is receiving treatment for his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis under the new law; and women's brains age more slowly than men's.

A campaign is underway to ask Congress to implement pieces of previous legislation aimed at improving electronic health records (EHRs) in order to reduce physician burnout and improve patient safety.

Foundation Medicine announced that it has won a nationwide contract from the Department of Veterans Affairs National Precision Oncology Program. The contract covers all of Foundation Medicine’s tests.

Voters in the red states of Utah and Idaho voted to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act last fall, but Republican legislatures in both those states are seeking ways to roll back those expansions; women sought out long-acting reversible contraception after the election of President Trump; a California coalition of health, labor, and education leaders cited a dearth of healthcare workers in recommending a workforce investment plan calling for spending up to $3 billion over 10 years to address the shortfall.

FDA has launched a process that will give real-world data generated outside clinical trials more importance than it’s had in the past—with implications for payers, drug companies, and most of all, patients.

Teens who use e-cigarettes or other tobacco-related products are more likely to later initiate cigarette use, according to a new study in JAMA Network Open.

Chronic pain accounted for 62.2% of all patient-reported qualifying conditions under which US patients sought medical marijuana, according to a new paper in Health Affairs.

ABIM Foundation is building upon its Choosing Wisely campaign with a new Trust Practice Challenge that will identify practices that build or rebuild trust in healthcare with the ultimate goal of creating a collection of replicable and scalable practices.

A recent study sought to develop a robust predictive model for patients whose disease will transform into acute myeloid leukemia, a complication that is associated with a poor prognosis.

While President Trump's State of the Union address is not finalized, he may plan to unveil a promise to end HIV transmission in America by 2030; a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by Maryland that claimed the Trump administration is failing to enforce the Affordable Care Act; new cystic fibrosis (CF) treatments targeting the genetic mutations that cause the disease help about 90% of patients, meaning that 10% are still waiting for a cutting-edge therapy.

A program designed to schedule follow-up appointments with primary care practices within 7 days of hospital discharge was associated with fewer readmissions.

According to a recent study, the out-of-pocket clinical costs and capitalized clinical costs per approved drug were both lower for orphan drugs compared with nonorphan drugs.

In 2015, the Neulasta On-Body Injector (OBI) Onpro device was introduced as a less costly method of pegfilgrastim administration. While the device has been found to be safe in healthy volunteers and have pharmacokinetics similar to that of traditional pegfilgrastim, there have been limited data comparing the 2 methods.

Abstracts presented at the 60th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition looked at how monitoring minimal residual disease can help predict outcomes in acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in the pathogenesis of b-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (BCP-ALL) and contribute to the stratification of BCP-ALL subtypes, according to results from a recent study.

A recent review outlined a vast array of biomarkers that may have clinical implications on the treatment and prognosis of colorectal cancer (CRC).

A recent study using the 2016 genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified that vascular mechanisms, but also neuronal and metal ion homeostasis, may play a role in migraine susceptibility.