About Covid-19
Executive Order on COVID-19 and Public Health Preparedness and Response “At this stage of my Administration’s response to COVID-19, I have determined that certain Executive Orders are no longer necessary and that certain roles and responsibilities established by other Executive Orders related to COVID-19 should be transferred to the OPPR[Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy]…
Revocations. Executive Order 13910 of March 23, 2020 (Preventing Hoarding of Health and Medical Resources to Respond to the Spread of COVID-19), Executive Order 13991 of January 20, 2021 (Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing), and Executive Order 13998 of January 21, 2021 (Promoting COVID-19 Safety in Domestic and International Travel), are hereby revoked.”
About healthcare quality
Groups unveil value-based care playbook “AHIP, the American Medical Association and the National Association of ACOs have released a playbook of voluntary best practices for value-based care payment arrangements…
The voluntary best practices are broken into seven domains:
Patient attribution
Benchmarking
Risk adjustment
Quality performance impact on payment
Levels of financial risk
Payment timing and accuracy
Incentivizing for value-based care practice participant performance”
About health insurance/insurers
CMS officials say agency is monitoring concerns from ACOs about DME costs “The National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) told the feds that a review of data from CMS' Virtual Research Data Center found a spike in payments related to two billing codes. Payments for urinary catheters grew from $153 million in 2021 to an eye-popping $2.1 billion in 2023.”
Healthcare billing fraud: 12 recent cases FYI
Medicaid Enrollment and Unwinding Tracker “At Least 20,104,000 Medicaid Enrollees Have Been Disenrolled and 43,640,000 Have Had Their Coverage Renewed, as of April 11, 2024.”
About pharma
The top 20 pharma companies by 2023 revenue FYI. J&J replaced Pfizer at the top spot.
About healthcare personnel
Updated Report: Hospital and Corporate Acquisition of Physician Practices and Physician Employment 2019-2023 Summary:
● “Employment by hospitals and corporate entities is nearing 80%.
● 19,100 additional physicians became employees of hospitals or other corporate entities over the last two years
● This represents a 5.1% increase in the percentage of employed physicians since 2022
● Hospitals and other corporate entities acquired 8,100 additional physician practices over the last two years
● This represents a 6.0% increase in the percentage of hospital or corporate-owned practices since 2022”
Life Cycle of Private Equity Investments in Physician Practices: An Overview of Private Equity Exits “Private equity firms acquire and grow physician practices through add-on consolidation, generating outsized returns on the sale of the acquisition in 3-8 years (“exit”). PE’s abbreviated investment timeline and exit incentives may deter long-term investments in care delivery and workforce needed for high quality care…
Of 807 acquisitions, over half (51.6%) of PE-acquired practices underwent an exit within 3 years of initial investment. In nearly all instances (97.8%), PE firms exited investments through secondary buyouts, where physician practices were resold to other PE firms with larger investment funds. Between investment and exit, PE firms increased the number of physician practices affiliated with the PE firm by an average of 595% in 3 years.”
About health technology
Alzheimer's blood test from Roche, Eli Lilly nabs FDA breakthrough tag “After more than a year in the works, Roche and Eli Lilly have taken a step closer to delivering their blood test designed to aid in the diagnosis of earlier cases of Alzheimer’s disease.
The FDA has granted their work a breakthrough designation to help accelerate its development. Roche’s Elecsys plasma assay searches for and quantifies phosphorylated fragments of the brain protein tau, known as pTau-217, with the goal of capturing a biomarker that can distinguish Alzheimer’s from other neurodegenerative disorders.”
Illumina gets go-ahead from European Commission to part ways with Grail “Illumina has received a green light from the European Commission to proceed with unwinding its ownership of Grail, though the details of that plan have yet to be unveiled.
The DNA sequencing giant still has the freedom to choose between selling the cancer blood test developer to another party outright or supporting its journey to the public markets as an independent spinout—and previously set a deadline for that decision at the end of June, after missing out on appeal in U.S. courts last December.
The commission officially ordered Illumina to cut ties with Grail last October, more than a year after the companies completed their $8 billion takeover deal ahead of clearing the European Union’s antitrust review process. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission delivered a similar edict last year on its side of the pond.”