In the past and, perhaps to some extent, today, the specialized care and medications required for the appropriate management of patients with rare diseases, such as hemophilia and SLE, was neither readily accessible nor affordable. A collaborative effort for advocacy by patients and physicians has gradually pushed the evolution of legislation and regulations to improve access to optimal management. Two such legislation are the Orphan Drug Act of 1983 and the Rare Diseases Act of 2002, which provided the incentives and means necessary to drive the pharmaceutical research and development to grow a flourishing drug market and pipeline for rare diseases. As a result, managed care policies continue to evolve in many ways, implementing mechanisms and policies to balance treatment access and costs with appropriate medication use and patient outcomes. Patient and physician advocacy for rare diseases prompted a wave of change, but the momentum will need to be maintained.
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.
Read More
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.
Listen
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.
Listen
Award-Winning Poster Presentations From AMCP 2024
April 23rd 2024At the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 2024 annual meeting, multiple poster presentations concerned with health equity, data collection, glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists, and more were acknowledged for their originality, relevance, clarity, bias, and quality.
Read More