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Considerations Regarding Statin Therapy
John A. Johnson, MD, MBA: Statins are medications that are used to lower cholesterol. They come with a lot of side effects; namely, the potential for causing damage, or injury, to the liver and muscle injury—so myopathy and rhabdomyolysis. A lot of these conditions can sometimes be painful and harmful. What we recommend, when a patient is started on a statin, is that they receive regular touchpoints with their clinician to ensure that their liver function tests are assessed, so that none of these negative events are occurring. Likewise, we want to ensure that our members are tolerating the medication and that it’s efficacious (meaning that it’s lowering the LDL [low-density lipoprotein] as the clinician would like it to).
Because these medications have a lot of side effects and safety concerns, sometimes the public tends to be a bit afraid of them. [However], the medications have been around for quite some time, and they’ve actually been proven to be very successful in lowering the LDL and lowering the risk of cardiovascular events, such as stroke. We definitely support, at WellCare, the use of statins, and we make these medications available on our preferred drug list.
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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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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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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Pegcetacoplan for PNH More Cost-Effective Than Anti-C5 Monoclonal Antibodies
April 18th 2024A cost-utility analysis conducted from the perspective of the Italian health system found that pegcetacoplan was more effective and less costly than 2 complement 5 (C5) inhibitors for the treatment of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH).
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