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What We're Reading: Biosimilar Reimbursement and Scrutinizing Drug Pricing
What we're reading, October 15, 2015: federal prosecutors subpoena Valeant Pharmaceuticals over how the company prices drugs, Atul Gawande, MD, makes the case for better coordinated care, and proposed biosimilar reimbursement sparks outrage.
Valeant Subpoenaed for Information on Drug Pricing
Federal prosecutors are seeking information about how Valeant Pharmaceuticals prices drugs, distributes them, and helps patients afford medicine. The company received subpoenas from US attorney offices in New York City’s southern district and Boston, according to the Wall Street Journal. The announcement comes 2 months after Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Elijah E. Cummings (D-MD) ramped up an investigation into drug price increases by requesting information from Valeant about escalating prices for 2 drugs it purchased from another drug company.
Read more from the Wall Street Journal: http://on.wsj.com/1MrmjDW
Better Coordinated Care Needed to Improve Patient Outcomes
At the Medical Group Management Association 2015 Annual Conference, Atul Gawande, MD, a health policy professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, discussed the importance of well-coordinated care teams. Breakdowns between outpatient physicians and surgeons and the intensive care unit can result in serious consequences for the patient, Medscape reported in a recap of Dr Gawande’s speech.
Read more: http://wb.md/1VU9wyN
Proposed Biosimilar Reimbursement Creates Unhappy Drugmakers
A proposal from CMS to create 1 reimbursement code for all biosimilars a physician might prescribe has upset drugmakers, who addressed fears such a move would undermine the biosimilar market, according to Pharmalot. Meanwhile, the brand-name biologic will have a separate code. One code could cause safety issues by making it difficult to know which treatment caused a side effect, and drugmakers say the move would rob them of incentives to pursue further development.
Read more: http://bit.ly/1GItGF4
The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC's) vote to ban most employers from issuing and enforcing noncompete clauses could have varying impacts on the health care workforce; federal regulators vastly under-enforced antitrust laws in the hospital sector during the last 2 decades, resulting in increased health costs; the FDA recently found genetic evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus in pasteurized commercially purchased milk.
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Navigating Health Policy in an Election Year: Insights From Dr Dennis Scanlon
April 2nd 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with Dennis Scanlon, PhD, the editor in chief of The American Journal of Accountable Care®, about prior authorization, price transparency, the impact of health policy on the upcoming election, and more.
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What We’re Reading: Abortion Privacy Rules; Alzheimer Drug Hurdles; Nursing Home Staffing Overhaul
April 23rd 2024New health privacy rules aim to protect patients and providers in an evolving abortion landscape; some physicians express concerns about efficacy, risks, and entrenched beliefs in treating Alzheimer disease; CMS addresses longstanding staffing deficits in nursing homes.
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The Biden administration recently launched the Global Health Security Strategy, a new effort to combat the spread of infectious diseases; lawmakers zeroed in on the risks of massive consolidation in health care during the first congressional hearing on the Change Healthcare hack; the FDA recently announced the recall of a pair of heart devices linked to numerous deaths and injuries.
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