Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
That is the summary takeaway I had form reviewing the 91 page CMS guidance on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) maximum fair price (MFP) negotiation released about 10 days ago. Below, I summarize some of the key findings. SELECTING DRUG FOR PRICE NEGOTIATION Unsurprisingly, CMS is looking for the highest cost drugs among the 10…
That is the finding from a study by Jia et al. (2023) published last week. The authors find that: Among 4003 eligible RCTs [randomized controlled trials], 1241 studies (31.0%) cited Cochrane reviews, 1698 studies (42.4%) cited prior non-Cochrane reviews, and 2265 studies (56.6%) cited either type of systematic review or both; 1738 RCTs (43.4%) cited…
Authorized generics (AGs) are generic drugs that–unlike independent generics–are sold by the brand-name drug manufacturer under a generic label. How big a role do these AGs play among Medicaid beneficiaries. A paper by Rome et al. (2023) aims to answer that using public Medicaid prescription use data between 2014 and 2020. Using these data, they…
Threats to Medicare’s new drug negotiation power Drugs likely to be involved in Medicare price negotiation. Future of the US vaccine programs. Will GPT automate your job out of existence? Drone delivery of medical supplies (and other things) explained.
That is the question posed in paper by Baker, Larcker and Wang (2022). I summarize their key arguments below. The validity of…[the DiD]…approach rests on the central assumption that the observed trend in control units’ outcomes mimic the trend in treatment units’ outcomes had they not received treatment. As the authors write: First, DiD estimates…
Through what mechanisms are patients and physicians made aware of new pharmaceuticals and decide to prescribe them. It is well known that physician peer networks often help share information about new pharmaceuticals including clinical information as well as the providers own experience using the new treatment. Other studies have shown that direct to consumer advertising…
A Health Affiairs Forefront article by DiGiorgio (2023) argues the 340B has outlived its purposes. He writes: By mandating that drug companies give a large discount to covered entities, the majority of which are hospitals with disproportionate share or critical access designations, the 340B program was intended to provide a financial buffer for institutions such as the…
The public health effect of legalizing marijuana. Source of cross-country health care spending differences. Sociodemographics and HVBP scores. Nursing homes: Cash flow and COVID-19 cases. Affirmative action in health care? Plus a few AI links: AI comes to Google Workspace. AI and productivity.
Some troubling statistics published recently by Woolf et al. (2023) using CDC WONDER data: Between 2019 and 2020, the all-cause mortality rate for ages 1 to 19 years increased by 10.7%, and it increased by an additional 8.3% between 2020 and 202…These increases, the largest in decades, followed a period of great progress in reducing…
Interesting paper from Ziedan, Simon and Wing (2023): The contraction in health care consumption at the start of the pandemic provides insight into central economic questions of waste and productivity in the U.S. health care system. Using linked mortality and Electronic Medical Records, we compare people who had outpatient appointments scheduled for dates in 30…