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What We're Reading: New Company Helps Fight Medical Bills
What we're reading, September 28, 2016: a new company will help people fight their medical bills; prescription drug monitoring programs may not be helping the opioid crisis; and why banning pay-for-delay deals may not help to lower costs.
A new start-up company is helping people fight their medical bills by connecting their insurance to a platform for constant scrutiny of every claim. According to The Atlantic, the service doesn’t come cheap, with Remedy taking 20% of the savings. There is currently a $99 cap in place for a single bill, but that could change. Remedy’s business is built around the fact that statistics show medical errors are responsible for $120 to $150 billion in overcharges each year.
Prescription drug monitoring programs may not be helping the opioid crisis, after all. These state-run databases are supposed to turn up evidence of abuse, but may make things worse as addicts start looking to street drugs for their fix, reported Politico. The programs have helped identify patients who doctor shop or doctors who overprescribe painkillers, but new data show that in many of the states using a drug monitoring database, heroin overdoses are skyrocketing.
One of Hillary Clinton’s proposals to lower drug costs is to ban “pay-for-delay” deals. However, this strategy may not be very effective, according to an opinion piece in STAT. Through pay-for-delay deals, drug companies with a branded drug offer to pay a generic company to stay out of the market for a set number of years. Unfortunately, these settlements are difficult to uncover, which means a more nuanced approach to reining in drug prices is necessary.
Early Involvement Critical in Treating Immunotherapy-Induced Overlap Syndrome
April 19th 2024A series of case studies reveals the importance of early diagnosis and involvement of special teams of clinicians when dealing with potential cases of overlap syndrome, which encompasses myocarditis, myasthenia gravis, and immune checkpoint inhibitor–related myositis.
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Overcoming Employment Barriers for Lasting Social Impact: Freedom House 2.0 and Pathways to Work
April 16th 2024To help celebrate and recognize National Minority Health Month, we are bringing you a special month-long podcast series with our Strategic Alliance Partner, UPMC Health Plan. Welcome to our second episode, in which we learn all about Freedom House 2.0 and the Pathways to Work program.
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Making Giant Strides in Maternity Health Through Baby Steps
April 9th 2024To help celebrate and recognize National Minority Health Month, we are kicking off a special month-long podcast series with our strategic alliance partner, UPMC Health Plan. Welcome to our first episode, which is all about the Baby Steps Maternity Program and its mission to support women throughout every step of their pregnancy journey.
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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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Real-World Study Reveals Key Insights Into DLBCL Treatment Patterns, Outcomes
April 18th 2024A recent study offers valuable insights into the characteristics, treatment patterns, and outcomes of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) in patients across different lines of therapy, providing a look into the landscape of DLBCL management.
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