Thursday, January 17, 2019
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Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center announced last week it will bar top executives from serving on corporate boards of drug and health care companies that pay them. The move comes in response to several conflict-of-interest scandals uncovered by
The New York Times
and
ProPublica
. That investigation has led to other leading cancer institutions to consider similar action.
(
The New York Times
)
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The government may be closed, but lawmakers are ready to take on drug pricing. They revived a bundle of legislation and oversight talks. This signals they want to put drugmakers in the hot seat when it comes to addressing health care costs,
Modern Healthcare
reports. But it's unclear how aggressively Congress will end up legislating on the issue and how lawmaker action will play into HHS Secretary Alex Azar's proposal to tie Medicare Part B prices to the lower prices paid in other comparable countries.
(
Modern Healthcare
)
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Innovation & Transformation
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Increasingly, health systems are trying to improve access and efficiency by offering comprehensive telemedicine services to e-ICUs, outlying clinics and even patients’ homes. It’s a boon for patients living miles from a major hospital or specialist, and it helps organizations optimize staffing. Challenges remain, however. Widespread adoption requires reimbursement changes. And so far, the very definition of “virtual hospital” remains unresolved.
(
Cardiovascular Business Magazine
)
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Louisiana will become the first state to move forward with a new way to pay for expensive hepatitis C treatments: the “
Netflix model
.” The state will pay what amounts to a subscription fee to a drug company for unlimited access to their drug. This could dramatically increase the number of people who can be cured. If it works, other states are expected to follow suit.
(
The Washington Post
)
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On Jan. 1, hospitals began complying with a Trump administration order to post list prices for all their services. The goal was to provide consumers with transparency and foster competition. Instead, it’s become a “fiasco,”
The New York Times
reports. The data, posted online in spreadsheets, is useless to patients
—
“a hodgepodge of numbers and technical medical terms, displayed in formats that vary from hospital to hospital.” No enforcement mechanisms are in place yet; officials are asking the public for suggestions.
(
The New York Times
)
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“We're no longer a non-urban, or for some of you all a rural, hospital company," Wayne Smith, CEO of Tennessee-based Community Health Systems announced at the J.P. Morgan Chase Healthcare Conference. As part of a debt-reduction plan, CHS strategically decided to pull out of rural communities with fewer than 50,000 people
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areas that previously constituted the bulk of CHS’ business. (
Nashville Public Radio
)
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Billions in uncompensated care
:
Between 2000 and 2017, U.S. hospitals have provided more than $620 billion in uncompensated care to patients, according to the American Hospital Association’s annual hospital survey. (
AHA
)
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Specialty drugs drive costs
:
Specialty drugs made up about 3 percent of prescriptions in California in 2017 but accounted for more than half of the prescription drug spending, according to a California Department of Insurance report. Specialty drugs make up about 1.3 percent of the 25 most frequently prescribed drugs and about 20 percent of insurers’ spending.
(
Fierce Healthcare
)
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CVS, Walmart can't agree on prices
:
Walmart pharmacies are now out of network for millions of Americans in the CVS Caremark prescription drug network. CVS's pharmacy benefits division and Walmart disagreed on reimbursement rates at Walmart's 4,700 pharmacies. Walmart wanted CVS to pay pharmacies more and (it says) the middleman PBM less, but CVS says the move would simply increase costs for patients. (
BenefitsPro
)
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The
Fixing Healthcare
podcast invites health care leaders to present a “bold yet pragmatic” plan to solve health care’s five biggest problems. Now, the public can vote on the best ideas
—
and share their own.
(
Forbes
)
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MarketVoices...quotes worth reading
“The posted prices are fanciful, inflated, difficult to decode and inconsistent, so it’s hard to see how an average person would find them useful.”
—
Jeanne Pinder, the founder and chief executive of Clear Health Costs, a consumer health research organization, as quoted by
The New York Times.
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Editor
Sandy Mau
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H2R Minutes
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