Health Care Cost

Oncology drugs are a huge driver of cost, but there’s a lot of innovation happening in the space to improve care and outcomes for patients, said Michelle Booth, PharmD, director of specialty clinical solutions at Magellan Rx Management.

The state of value-based contracting in specialty pharmacy was addressed in a panel discussion at Asembia 2021 Specialty Pharmacy Summit in Las Vegas, with speakers touching on the essentials of such agreements, how to optimally integrate them, and future considerations for the pharmaceutical marketplace.

In the years since its inception, debates around the 340B program have centered on whether savings actually benefit the underserved as intended. A new paper in The American Journal of Managed Care® analyzed secondary data on 340B participation and uncompensated care provision from general acute care and critical access hospitals between 2003 and 2015.

Panelists of the opening session at Asembia 2021 Specialty Pharmacy Summit in Las Vegas address emerging shifts in specialty pharmacy, its impact on the health care system, and future implications post pandemic.

In studies presented at the American College of Gastroenterology 2021 meeting, success was reported for RBX2660, a treatment for clostridioides difficile infection (CDI).

Posters presented at AMCP Nexus 2021 evaluated the health care resource utilization (HRU) and costs associated with the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies tisagenlecleucel and axicabtagene ciloleucel.

Health care costs are 3 to 5 times greater for people with rare diseases compared with those without, according to a new study.

Posters presented at the AMCP Nexus 2021 meeting reviewed the cost-effectiveness and cost per response for zanubrutinib vs ibrutinib.

Physician and health policy advocates praised the emphasis on streamlining models and ending silos, but practices that invested in the Oncology Care Model (OCM) await key details.

Novel financial concepts will help to ensure sustainable access to gene and cell therapies, which may help reduce disparities, said Jane F. Barlow, MD, MPH, MBA, senior advisor, FoCUS Project, MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation, and executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Real Endpoints.

Adalimumab biosimilar AVT02 exhibited comparative efficacy, safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity to the reference drug Humira in patients with moderate-to-severe chronic plaque psoriasis.

Older individuals with a weekday bedtime later than midnight were associated with a greater risk of myocardial infarction. No elevated risks were observed according to weekend bedtimes.

The fall meeting has multiple sessions on different aspects of health disparities and addressing drug costs, including 3 sessions on biosimilars.

Wearable accelerometer data from over 89,000 participants indicated that people with a mental illness diagnosis were more likely to have poor sleep quality than the general population.

DOJ requests federal appeals court to block grant of stay for Texas' abortion law; common synthetic chemicals linked with premature death; influenza hospitalization and death more likely in pediatric minority populations.

An evaluation of price transparency tools for ophthalmologic procedures found significant usability, availability, and variability issues, which may disproportionately impact vulnerable populations.

Patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) were found to be more likely to report musculoskeletal symptoms and dermatologic issues prior to initial PsA diagnosis.

Research presented at EHA2021 shows that the JAK 1/2 inhibitor ruxolitinib produced cost-effective benefits per quality-adjusted life-year and increased the overall survival rate for patients with myelofibrosis.

Male patients with young-onset type 2 diabetes were found to be at 72% greater risk of retinopathy compared with those who received a diagnosis at 50 years or older.

Analysis finds significant spike in deaths among nursing home residents due to the Delta variant; hospitalization charges for patients with COVID-19 vary widely; spotlighting the threat of heat waves and extreme weather conditions for pregnant women.

Aligned with increases in costs for both airplane and helicopter air ambulance transport, average estimated air ambulance costs rose 76.4% from 2017 to 2020, according to Robin Gelburd, JD, president of FAIR Health.

Consumer protections against surprise medical billing will go into effect January 1; Merck’s experimental oral COVID-19 antiviral drug shows efficacy against variants; an online questionnaire finds a 40% decrease in teen vaping from 2020 to 2021.

Although physicians’ clinical decisions serve as the biggest drivers behind the cost of care, hospitals have long been reluctant to take financial accountability. If such accountability is to be transformed from a diffuse fear to a manageable managerial task, institutional engagement with physicians will be a critical next step.

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

President Joe Biden reportedly will increase global COVID-19 vaccine donations; the pandemic may have led to an increase in home births; use of Biogen’s Adulhelm, an Alzheimer disease drug, does not hit initial projections.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we address how delays in routine care and other aspects of the pandemic are affecting payer organizations today, and how technology innovations like natural language processing can work to empower key initiatives in population health and beyond.

An updated report shows that the long-term cost of treating the health effects of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)—$4.3 billion—is even higher than $3.7 billion it takes to diagnose and treat immediate issues that present for women who are of reproductive age.

A study of patients given first-line metastatic melanoma treatment showed that utilization rates were highest in patients using ipilimumab-containing therapies.

Medicare beneficiaries with psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis were found to pay high annual out-of-pocket (OOP) costs for treatment, which researchers attributed to rising drug prices and reliance on co-insurance for patient cost-sharing.

Looking forward to the 10th anniversary of the Patient-Centered Oncology Care® (PCOC) conference, taking place in a hybrid format September 23-24, 2021, Joseph Alvarnas, MD, of City of Hope, editor-in-chief of Evidence-Based Oncology™, and co-chair of the meeting, discusses the takeaways that attendees can expect to hear about in the areas of patient care, payment and quality, and multidisciplinary collaboration among specialists.