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Patients might be able to avoid or better manage surprise ambulance bills; Brexit causes providers to leave London and prevents others from entering Britain at all; new research provides insight on antibiotic resistance.

The “nocebo” effect, a phenomenon that occurs when a patient’s negative perception of a therapy causes a treatment to have a worse outcome than would otherwise be expected, has become a topic of increasing interest in the world of biosimilars as some patients begin to transition from familiar, high-cost biologics to new, lower-cost biosimilars.

This week, the top managed care stories included a new rule from CMS to address drug costs for seniors; a campaign to get payers to fund the artificial pancreas is working; and a new survey identifies how Americans prefer to treat pain.

Coverage of our peer-reviewed research and news reporting in the healthcare and mainstream press.

A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that blood pressure (BP) lowering is associated with reduced risk of death and cardiovascular disease (CVD) if the baseline systolic blood pressure (SBP) is 140 mm Hg or higher. Treatment may be considered in patients with coronary heart disease and SBP under 140 mm Hg, but not for primary prevention.

This Thanksgiving, families will discuss of end-of-life care wishes; FDA provides new guidance for development of abuse-deterrent opioids; Missouri reverses its restrictive policy in Medicaid for hepatitic C medicine.

Chief Togetherness Officer Robin Caruso, LCSW, highlights early successes of CareMore's program to address lonelineness in the senior population.

The National Center for Health Statistics has issued its early estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, conducted between January and June 2017. The report presents selected estimates, based on data for 39,480 people in the first 6 months of the year, on health insurance coverage for the US population.

Roche is suing Pfizer to block the company from selling a biosimilar referencing its breast-cancer drug Herceptin in the United States, claiming that the biosimilar infringes on 40 of its patents.

Consolidation is happening all throughout the healthcare industry in the United States, but the shift to consolidation in dermatology began to pick up speed in just the last 3 to 5 years and it has been driven by private investors, according to a new Viewpoint in JAMA Dermatology.

David Dale, MD, professor, internal medicine, University of Washington Medical Center, dicusess diagnosing neutropenia and its symptoms; the causes of neutropenia; when neutropenia becomes dangerous and requires hospitalization; and the costs associated with neutropenia in an interview with The American Journal of Managed Care®.

Massachusetts is trying to get a federal exemption to alter its Medicaid program; patients waiting for disability benefits get stuck in a huge backlog; and companies are preparing to increase collection and use of real-world evidence.

The Beyond A1C movement seeks regulatory and clinical are frameworks that recognize the day-to-day measures that matter to patients, such as how often they experience hypoglycemia.

Chemotherapy and radiation therapy should be the first line of treatment for certain prostate cancers and lymphomas with a major genetic weakness, according to researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

An early-stage trial in pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) has found that modifying the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells to target the CD22 receptor achieved remission.

Roche announced that its phase 3 IMpower150 study determined that the combination of drug atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to bevacizumab (Avastin) with the chemotherapy drugs paclitaxel and carboplatin showed a significant reduction in the risk of disease worsening or death compared to Avastin plus chemotherapy in the first-line treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Behavioral testing of adolescents identified 3 distinct subgroups, suggesting there is not a clear-cut explanation for the disorder.

An analysis using mixed quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as site visits to 7 US oncology practices, identified 13 attributes within 5 themes that potentially contribute to high-quality care at a relatively low total cost.

Data from a study of smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) indicate that the concentration of eosinophils in the sputum, rather than the blood, is a better predictor of COPD exacerbations and lung function.

A recent study evaluated the treat-to-target strategy by assessing whether patients with early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who start methotrexate as monotherapy had similar or worse outcomes compared with patients who started with adalimumab plus methotrexate.

VA Secretary David Shulkin wants the private sector to play a larger role in veterans' healthcare; Arizona's Supreme Court ruled in favor of a component to keep the state's Medicaid expansion; Acorda ends drug development of tozadenant for Parkinson's disease.

The Coverage2Control campaign has worked to convince payers of the value of life-saving technology and the need to control out-of-pocket costs.

Most US adults would prefer to find other ways to manage their pain, such as neck or back pain, before taking prescribed pain medication, a Gallup research brief found.

A recent abstract presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting compared 2 risk models for patients with intermediate chemotherapy-induced neutropenia (CIN) risk and compared them to guidelines from ASCO and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network to determine when colony-stimulating factor should be ideally used to prevent CIN. ​​​​​​

Researchers examined the gut microbiome of patients with metastatic melanoma who were being treated with anti–PD-1 immunotherapy, and they determined that patients with a more diverse population of gut bacteria or an abundance of certain types of bacteria were more likely to have their disease controlled for longer.

Federal regulators are asking for information that will get to the bottom of how drug discounting between pharmaceutical companies and health plans affect what seniors pay at the pharmacy counter.

The White House indicated willingness to leave the individual insurance mandate in place in tax reform legislation; California health system Sutter Health was accused of intentionally destroying 10 years of records related to an antitrust lawsuit; and a new study indicates over 1 in 5 patients develops posttraumatic stress disorder in the months after a cancer diagnosis.

With the growing shift to community-based and patient-centered care, the National Quality Forum (NQF) and the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) have launched initiatives to ensure that patients with serious illness receive safe, effective, and high-quality care. At the same time, professionals in the healthcare industry are highlighting the importance of integrating this type of care into the oncology practice.

This week, the top stories in managed care included new hypertension guidelines lowering the threshold for high blood pressure, Trump nominating a new HHS secretary, and many consumers now have access to less expensive ACA plans.

Recently reported results of a phase 3 study found that patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA) who received intravenous golimumab (Simponi) had significantly greater improvements in the signs and symptoms of PsA through week 24 than did patients who received placebo.