Health Care Delivery

This review and meta-analysis included 34 studies covering 1762 patients, and investigated the efficacy of 4 varieties of dietary treatment for eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE).

The data showed that most doses of nusinersen were received on time while also underscoring the importance of being meticulous with the methodological approaches used with real-world databases for evaluating treatment patterns.

High patient experience scores were associated with the collection and use of any clinician performance information, especially with whether the practice shared this information internally to compare.

Social Security and Medicare spending could double by 2023; FDA panel experts want naloxone to be available over the counter after the drug information is revised; Moderna announced its COVID-19 vaccines will stay free, and the Biden administration might keep tests and treatments free for the uninsured.

Paul G. Alexander, MD, MPH, executive vice president and chief health equity and transformation officer, RWJBarnabas Health, speaks on strategies his organization implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic to address continuity of care and communication challenges in underserved communities and further efforts to improve health equity.

Some communities will use COVID relief money to pay medical debt; residents living near train car derailment site in Ohio are worried about toxic chemical health effects; following medical guidelines point by point would create impossibly long workdays for providers, studies are pointing out.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Inland Empire Health Plan, a managed care plan serving more than 1.4 million residents on Medi-Cal in California, about a new maternal mental health program aimed at supporting new mothers, both before they give birth and afterward.

Targeting everyday chronic conditions to rare diseases that require costly, sometimes 1-time treatments, CMS Tuesday announced an intent to test 3 new models in an effort to lower drug prices and widen access to expensive, life-changing therapies for patients in Medicare and Medicaid.

Amy Crawford-Faucher, MD, vice chair of the Primary Care Institute and Department of Family Medicine at Allegheny Health Network, discussed recent reports from the World Health Organization about COVID-19.

HHS wants to require nursing homes to disclose more ownership and management information; privacy advocates warn that mental health data can legally be sold from certain platforms not covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act; the FDA won’t review Soligenix’s cancer drug proposal because of an insufficient application.

The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) reaffirmed previous recommendations against routine serologic screening for genital herpes infection among asymptomatic adolescents and adults, including pregnant individuals.

A planned transition to dialysis was associated with improved outcomes and lower mortality. These findings may inform care coordination policies for end-stage renal disease.

Implications of these findings include a more clear understanding of the burden imposed by heart failure (HF), which encompasses the cost of care and adverse health outcomes.

A new study found that protection from the Omicron variant waned 6 months after the second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in older patients.

Congress has no solution for out-of-network ambulance rides; teenagers going to an emergency department in a mental health crisis don't receive necessary follow-up care; Medicaid explores nutritional benefits of food as medicine spending in some states.

Overall survival and recurrence-free survival showed substantial improvement when physicians more closely followed quality recommendations for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Individuals exposed to antidepressant drugs for longer than 365 days had an increased risk of epilepsy, particularly those given escitalopram, venlafaxine, and mirtazapine, according to a recent study conducted in Taiwan.

An analysis of 112 infant deaths found that the contribution of genetic diseases to mortality was higher than previously known, and that treatments are available for 30% of the genetic diseases uncovered by the study.

The patient, an 83-year-old man, experienced onset of myasthenia gravis after a severe SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Strength training for people with hemophilia (PwH) should consider exercise variables and pain threshold, a review finds.

Among older adults with chronic noncancer pain on long-term opioid therapy, greater continuity of opioid prescribing was significantly associated with fewer opioid-related adverse outcomes.

The Biden administration released 2 sets of guidance documents for pharmaceutical manufacturers about how it plans to implement the new Medicare Prescription Drug Inflation Rebate Program as required under the Inflation Reduction Act, and said some beneficiaries could see lower coinsurance for some Part B drugs as soon as April 1.

Kirk Campbell, MD, FASN, Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Department of Medicine at Mount Sinai Health System in New York, spoke on educational initiatives implemented by Mount Sinai to train resident physicians, medical students, and senior faculty on health equity, as well as further research efforts to address disparities.

Jessica Allegretti, MD, MPH, medical director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, discussed how the FDA’s approval of Rebyota for the prevention of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) may promote cost effective management of CDI for patients and health systems.

The authors conducted a subanalysis of data on 100,000-plus children from 3 studies to estimate the global prevalence and severity of eczema; they used linear mixed models to do so.

Data released in the CDC’s latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report indicate that patients with end-stage kidney disease on hemodialysis who are Black, Hispanic/Latino, or of lower socioeconomic status (SES) are at greater risk of Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infections, with Hispanic/Latino ethnicity cited as an independent risk factor.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we speak with Tom Stanis, CEO and cofounder of Story Health, and Phillip Wood, Intermountain Ventures program director, on how their partnership came about, how it is going so far, and the future of their collaboration.

Drug costs, particularly for immunotherapies, contributed to the rising cost of care during the last 6 months of life for a fee-for-service Medicare beneficiary, according to a recent study.

Even patients with the mildest symptoms of myasthenia gravis said they experienced negative quality-of-life (QOL) effects from the disease.

The modified Atkins diet exhibited superior tolerability and effectiveness in reducing seizure frequency compared with other dietary therapies in the management of childhood drug-resistant epilepsy.