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What We're Reading: Medicare Premium Increases Will Be Modest
What we're reading, November 11, 2016: Medicare premium increases lower than expected for high earners; HHS' Office of Inspector General will increase pharmaceutical oversight; and a study on the safety of mail-order abortion pills.
Premium increases in Medicare will be lower than initially projected. For 70% of Medicare beneficiaries, the increase will only be 4% over last year, and for the remaining beneficiaries who are high earners, the increase will be 10%, according to AP. The increase for high earners is well below the initial projected increase of as much as 22%, which had been in a June report.
The HHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) will focus its attention on drug pricing amid concerns about the rising price of prescription medications. STAT reported that the OIG already creates such reports, but it will widen its focus to other issues, such as waste when treatments are distributed in single vials. Drug oversight is becoming a top priority for the agency.
A study is looking into the safety of abortion pills delivered by mail. According to The New York Times, researchers are trying to determine if abortions induced by medicine instead of surgery can be done safely at home with an online consultation with a doctor. Abortion opponents find the at-home, mail-order abortion pills dangerous, but advocates say the ability to receive these pills at home is a needed option for some women as access to abortion is being restricted.
Study Highlights BMP7 As a Potential Therapeutic Target for Ovarian Cancer
November 30th 2023High Bone Morphogenetic Protein 7 (BMP7) expression was significantly associated with aggressive phenotypes, including advanced grade, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage, residual disease, and adverse overall survival.
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7-Day Dosing of Azacytidine Shows Benefit for Females With High-Risk MDS Not Seen in Males
November 30th 2023Investigators from several medical centers in Japan were surprised to find that women with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) had a survival advantage from a 7-day dosing schedule, but that benefit compared with a reduced schedule was not seen in men.
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Oncology Onward: A Conversation With Thyme Care CEO and Cofounder Robin Shah
October 2nd 2023Robin Shah, CEO of Thyme Care, which he founded in 2020 with Bobby Green, MD, president and chief medical officer, joins hosts Emeline Aviki, MD, MBA, and Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, to discuss his evolution as an entrepreneur in oncology care innovation and his goal of positively changing how patients experience the cancer system.
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Contributor: More Informed Management of Preeclampsia Is Necessary
November 29th 2023At present, it is difficult for clinicians to identify patients at greatest risk for developing preeclampsia with severe features and tailor treatment plans for them; this difficulty increases costs significantly.
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Research Points to Potential MCIDs in Diabetes Distress Scale–17
November 29th 2023Researchers identified a value of at least 0.25 to be a minimal clinically important difference (MCID) in diabetes distress, and MCID values of 0.38 and 0.39 for emotional and interpersonal distress subscales and physician and regimen distress subscales, respectively.
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