About health insurance
KFF Health Tracking Poll – February 2020: Health Care in the 2020 Election: “The latest KFF poll finds a clear majority of the public viewing the law favorably (55%), while slightly more than one-third (37%) of the public hold unfavorable views… Nearly nine in ten Democrats (85%) and Democratic voters (86%) view the ACA favorably and while most Republicans view the unfavorably, significantly fewer Republicans offer repealing the 2010 health reform law as their top health care issue. Voters, overall, and across party identification, prioritize other health care issues such as health care costs.” Healthcare is the #1 issue with all voters, especially swing voters. “
Health insurers' profits topped $35B last year. Medicare Advantage is the common thread: “UnitedHealth Group was once again the most profitable company on the list, netting $3.5 billion in profit for the quarter and $13.8 billion in profit across 2019. By comparison, the second-place finisher, CVS, earned $1.7 billion in quarterly profit and $6.6 billion in profit for the year.” Revenue and profits are displayed for the seven largest plans.
The 3 biggest questions providers have as CMS' direct contracting deadline nears: Tomorrow is the deadline to apply to be part of the implementation year for direct contracting with CMS. But a number of questions still are unanswered. For example, what are the benchmarks that will be used to determine if the organization saved money or went over budget? This article is a nice summary of these outstanding issues.
Physicians, Hospitals Meet Their New Competitor: Insurer-Owned Clinics: “Some of the largest health insurers are capitalizing on recent massive deals by steering patients toward clinics they now own, controlling both delivery and payment for health care…Generally, plans built around a health insurer’s own clinics include smaller networks with more limited choices of doctors and hospitals. That can lower premiums—but the insurers also can benefit because they keep revenue inside their own holdings rather than paying outside companies for the care of their members.”
About the public’s health
Virus Outbreak: Researcher says COVID-19 likely synthetic: Sounds like a conspiracy theory. “Analyses of COVID-19 [at National Taiwan University] have shown that is has a 96% genetic similarity with an RaTG13 bat virus at the institute, adding that while viruses need to be at least 99% similar to call them "the same," it is the differences in particular that have led researchers to speculate that COVID-19 was manufactured by modifying RaTG13.” Confirmation of the results is pending.
Health officials worry as untraceable virus clusters emerge: Update on the coronavirus pandemic.
White House to ask Congress for emergency coronavirus funding: The amount has not been specified.
One-third of parents are delaying giving vaccines to their children: Study: “63% of children received vaccines on time before the age of three, as per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, while 23% limited the number of shots per visit or skipped at least one vaccine. Another 14% were not compliant with guideline recommendations…” A major reasons for this low number is misinformation about safety. Vaccination is also low among “children who moved across state lines, were not first-born, lived in the Northeast, were black or multi-race, and below the poverty level…”
.It’s ‘almost free’ to have a baby in Finland—and feels like ‘the whole country is providing for a child’: Could we do the same in this country?
About healthcare IT
Companies in pharmaceutical supply chain develop system to track counterfeit drugs: The system is based on blockchain- a great use for that technology in the face of a global counterfeiting problem.
Americans ready to embrace healthcare AI on one condition: “Close to 1 in 4 Americans would be willing to use a healthcare AI tool, app or technology as long as it met one criterion: lowering the cost of their care.” That response is far from a ringing endorsement!
Strategy on Reducing Regulatory and Administrative Burden Relating to the Use of Health IT and EHRs, This Final Report, from the Office of the National Coordinator (as required by the 21st Century Cures Act), has three primary goals:
“Reduce the effort and time required to record information in EHRs for health care providers when they are seeing patients;
Reduce the effort and time required to meet regulatory reporting requirements for clinicians, hospitals, and health care organizations; and
Improve the functionality and intuitiveness (ease of use) of EHRs.”
About pharma
Top 10 biotech IPOs in 2019: Details by company are included in this article.
Pharma payments to docs led to nearly 4% boost in prescription spending: The study from the NBER found that: “On average, expenditures are approximately $9 greater per month in the year following the payment. Relative to average monthly expenditures, $238, this is slightly less than a 4% increase.” Previous studies indicated a 7% increase.