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What We're Reading: Double-Booked Surgeries; Counties With No ACA Plans; Hearing on Drug Prices
Hospital Repeatedly Double-Booked Surgeries
Federal lawsuit is alleging that Massachusetts General Hospital juggled multiple surgeries and kept patients under anesthesia longer than was safe. According to The Boston Globe, the lawsuit claims that at least 5 surgeons endangered patients in this way and the whistleblower, a former anesthesiologist, witnessed surgeons going back and forth between operating rooms to perform simultaneous operations. When patients stay under anesthesia longer than necessary, it increases the risk of complications.
Some Counties Will Have No ACA Insurer in 2018
There will be 45 counties with no insurer participating in their Affordable Care Act marketplaces in 2018, affecting about 35,000 people. An analysis from The New York Times found that an additional 1388 counties could have just 1 insurer, affecting about 3 million people. The places of the country that will be hardest hit are the South and the Midwest. However, some insurance companies have yet to make a decision about what they will do in 2018 and the final numbers could change. For instance, Anthem has already pulled out of Ohio, but it hasn’t decided about the 299 counties outside of Ohio where it is currently the only insurer.
Congressional Hearing on Drug Prices
The US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will hold a hearing on Tuesday about how America’s drug-delivery system impacts what patients pay. The hearing will explore how industry practices, such as rebates, affect total drug spending, according to The Wall Street Journal. There will be no company executives or industry lobby groups represented at the hearing.
An Overview of Health Care and Pharmaceutical Trends, 2023-2024
April 19th 2024Douglas M. Long, BA, MBA, was featured as the keynote speaker on the closing day of The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy 2024 annual meeting, with a session dedicated to surveying the health care and pharmaceutical trends of the last year.
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Navigating Health Literacy, Social Determinants, and Discrimination in National Health Plans
February 13th 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with the authors of a study published in the February 2024 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® about their findings on how health plans can screen for health literacy, social determinants of health, and perceived health care discrimination.
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Government agencies have created an online portal for the public to report potential anticompetitive practices in health care; there are changes coming to the “boxed warning” section for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies (CAR T) to highlight T-cell blood cancer risk; questions about the safety of obesity medications during pregnancy have arisen in women on them who previously struggled with fertility issues.
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Drs Raymond Thertulien, Joseph Mikhael on Racial Disparities in Multiple Myeloma Care Access
December 28th 2023In the wake of the 2023 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition, Raymond Thertulien, MD, PhD, of Novant Health, and Joseph Mikhael, MD, MEd, FRCPC, FACP, chief medical officer of the International Myeloma Foundation, discussed health equity research highlights from the meeting and drivers of racial disparities in multiple myeloma outcomes.
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Gene, Light Therapy Combo Shows Promise Against Prostate Cancer Cells in Proof-of-Concept Study
April 18th 2024In their preclinical model, the researchers found efficacy both in vitro and in vivo by using CRISPR-Cas9 to mimic porphyria and combining the technology with light therapy.
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