All News

A US District Court judge in Washington, DC, agreed with plaintiffs who argued that the HHS Secretary did not act reasonably in allowing states to create work requirements for beneficiaries to receive healthcare. Orders sending both state waivers back to HHS are expected today.

In an ongoing study, researchers seek to determine whether a staggered, "step up" intervention model could be more successful and cost-effective than standard care for achieving viral suppression in youths living with HIV.

Louisiana's Departments of Health and Corrections announced this week their selection of Asegua Therapeutics, a generics subsidiary arm of Gilead Sciences, as their pharmaceutical partner for the state’s “Netflix” subscription model for hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment. Asegua won the deal over Merck and AbbVie, which each submitted bids for the subscription model.

A lack of diversity in cell lines used for laboratory studies means underrepresented populations and minorities might not benefit from precision medicines as quickly as people from European ancestry.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar and Attorney General Bill Barr opposed the Trump administration’s support to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA) through a federal lawsuit; OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, agreed to pay $270 million to avoid a state court trial in Oklahoma over the company’s role in the spread of opioids over the past 20 years; a New York county is banning unvaccinated children in public places in the wake of a measles crisis that has infected more than 150 people.

Individuals with an obstructive lung disease saw improvement in lung function when they replaced 30 minutes of sedentary time per day with strenuous or strength-building physical activity.

House Democrats introduced a bill that aims to protect the patient protections enshrined in the Affordable Care Act.

Earlier this week, the FDA released a draft guidance document titled, "Rare Diseases: Natural History Studies for Drug Development” with the intention of informing both the design and implementation of natural history studies that can be used to support the development of safe and effective treatments for rare diseases.

The Department of Justice now backs the ruling from a district court judge in Texas that said the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) is invalidated without the individual mandate, which was removed when Congress reduced the penalty to $0.

Medical practices are leaving money on the table by not producing clean medical claims. Incremental improvement can improve cash flow and reduce accounts receivable days, important metrics to determine the health of a medical practice.

Here are 5 interesting findings from the March 2019 issue of AJMC®.

A review of studies assessing the impact of telemonitoring on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) outcomes resulted in mixed findings.

United Parcel Service (UPS) is planning to test a service that will dispatch nurses to administer vaccines in a patient's home; survey results reveal that the majority of Americans think the government is spending too little on healthcare; and Biogen has halted 2 clinical trials testing an experimental treatment for Alzheimer disease.

A recent retrospective, single-center study sought to characterize symptoms associated with vestibular migraine attacks, symptoms in between attacks, psychiatric comorbidities, and interictal neuro-otologic examination findings.

Recently published consensus recommendations discuss analytical antiretroviral treatment interruption (ATI), including who can be included and excluded and when to restart antiretroviral therapy (ART).

This week, the FDA sent out an alert to various healthcare professionals and the public to warn about the risks associated with the investigational use of venetoclax (Venclexta) for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma (MM). The alert is based on data from the ongoing phase 3 BELLINI trial evaluating the drug for this treatment.

A recent study found that patients with myeloproliferative neoplasms living in the United Kingdom, as well as their doctors, felt more burdened by the disease than other patients and providers in other parts of the world.

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

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, called for stricter oversight of electronic health records (EHRs); Medicaid expansion in Kentucky has led to increases in screening, diagnoses, and survival of colorectal cancer (CRC); contradicting claims from some federal and state officials, the majority of beneficiaries who lost coverage for not complying with Arkansas’ Medicaid work requirements have not found employment.

Researchers found that a prescription for healthy food can improve health outcomes for beneficiaries in Medicare and Medicaid.

This week, the top managed care news included new primary prevention guidelines that could increase the use of some diabetes drugs; the FDA expanded criteria for which patients can take part in clinical trials; a summit on value-based insurance design showed the need for tough conversations with stakeholders.

For SGLT2 inhibitors and a fish oil capsule, there was plenty of good news; for aspirin, not so much. A recap of the American College of Cardiology's 68th Annual Scientific Session, held March 16-18, 2019, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Medicaid work requirements could have a severely negative effect on hospital finances, reducing total revenues, raising uncompensated care costs, and decreasing operating margins.

A report from the Urban Institute examined changes in Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace rating regions from 2017 to 2019.

Some states are rethinking how to compensate hospitals for services, using Medicare reimbursement rates as a benchmark to control costs for state employee health plans; reported cases of mumps are on the rise at Temple University in Philadelphia; the Lancet Commission outlines a new plan for worldwide tuberculosis eradication.

OnabotulinumtoxinA (Botox) showed a sustained reduction in headache-day frequency and significant improvement in quality-of-life measures in patients with chronic migraine followed for 2 years, according to a recent study looking at real-world effects.

If approved the oral form of semaglutide would be the first pill in the GLP-1 receptor agonist class.