In a 99 to 1 vote, the Senate passed a legislative package of 70 bills totaling $8.4 billion in funding to curb the opioid crisis. Among the measures: allowing advanced practice nurses to prescribe medications (like buprenorphine) to fight addiction. The House passed a similar package earlier this year. One measure passed by the House but excluded from the Senate bill is rollback of the old rule prohibiting Medicaid to cover inpatient substance abuse treatment in mental health institutions with more than 16 beds.(The Washington Post)
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced it’s cutting the Affordable Care Act grant funding for navigators from $36 million to $10 million. The agency says most Americans are using brokers to help navigate the federal insurance marketplace, noting that only 1 percent of those signing up last year used a patient navigator to enroll. “This decision reflects CMS’s commitment to put federal dollars for the federally-facilitated exchanges to their most cost-effective use in order to better support consumers through the enrollment process,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said.(Patient Engagement HIT)
Health care premium hikes for employer-sponsored plans are expected to be less than 5 percent for the 2020 insurance enrollment period, lower than in previous years. Individual premiums in the ACA marketplaces are projected to be just 3.1 percent for 2019, significantly lower than last year’s increases in the 30 percent range.(Forbes)
The Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee recommended three more advanced physician payment models for consideration by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. One from the American College of Emergency Physicians, is a bundled payment model for qualified diagnoses that present in the emergency room. It was recommended with PTAC’s highest endorsement for full implementation. To date, the Department of Health and Human Services has not moved forward on any of the models PTAC has recommended for limited-scale testing or full-scale implementation. (MedPage Today; American College of Physicians letter to PTAC)
Reliable transportation to help people get to non-emergency medical appointments has been a challenge for managed Medicare and Medicaid providers who want to eliminate transportation as a barrier to care. A recent analysis of a partnership between CareMore Health and Lyft for transportation showed positive results in terms of cost reduction and patient satisfaction with the service. But the data doesn’t show whether patients miss fewer appointments or if health outcomes improved.(Health Affairs blog)
The Food and Drug Administration took enforcement action against 1,300 retailers for selling e-cigarettes to minors. What’s more, the FDA’s Scott Gottlieb says teen use of e-cigarettes is an “epidemic,” hinting that the agency is considering further action against flavored e-cigarette liquids. In related news, a study finds that 9 percent of middle and high school students have used an e-cigarette device to “vape” marijuana. (U.S. News and World Report; CNN)
Continued delays to implement a final rule for greater drug pricing transparency is the impetus for a lawsuit filed last week by the American Hospital Association and six other health care organizations. They’re suing the Department of Health and Human Services for failing to develop regulatory details that compel drug companies to reveal maximum per-unit prices for HHS programs. Most critical to the plaintiffs are rules for the 340B drug pricing program that allows hospitals to buy certain drugs at a discount. The rule implementation has been delayed repeatedly since March 2017. HHS says it’s working to develop comprehensive drug pricing policies, including the 340B rules.(Becker’s Hospital Review)
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Cigna-Express deal gets green light:The Justice Department officially cleared Cigna’s $52 billion purchase of Express Scripts, the last of the major pharmacy benefit management organizations to close a acquisition deal.(Politico)
Apple hires Fairview exec:M. Osman Akhtar, chief operating officer of Minnesota-based Fairview Health Services for just over a year, has been tapped to lead Apple’s employee health clinic venture. Akhtar previously worked for Sutter Health, the northern California health care giant.(CNBC)
If doctors had conversations about what’s most important to patients when they're facing mortality, treatment could better match their wishes, says Atul Gawande, surgeon and author of the new book Being Mortal. Gawande says there’s a big divide between the what patients really want to know when facing their mortality and the typically fact-focused discussions physicians offer. He delves into a range of topics, including his work as the new leader of the Amazon-J.P. Morgan Chase-Berkshire Hathaway employee health consortium, in a wide-ranging discussion with Harvard Divinity School’s Dean David Hempton.(The Harvard Gazette)
MarketVoices...quotes worth reading
"It is very difficult (if not impossible) to tell whether a vaping device contains nicotine e-liquid or cannabis just from looking at the device or the cartridge…As vaping in general goes up, then vaping nicotine will go up, and vaping marijuana will go up. I think they're all grouped together."— Richard Miech, professor, University of Michigan, as quoted in a CNN story
