Friday Links
Clinical trials going digital. JAMA return-to-play guidance. Would a COVID-19 vaccine produce larger health or economic benefits? Pros and cons of telemedicine. Are we there yet? A review of 4 value-based care programs.
Month: October 2020
The Oncology Care Model is dead. Long Live the Oncology Care First Model.
The Oncology Care Model is slated to end soon. Specifically, the last set of six-month episodes would initiate no later than December 31, 2020 and thus all episodes will be completed in June 30, 2021. Nevertheless, CMS is proposing a successor to the Oncology Care Model called the Oncology Care First (OCF) Model. CMS describes…
Will California Produce and Distribute Biosimilars and Generics Drugs?
As AJMC reports, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law legislation that will allow California to produce and distribute its own line of biosimilars, biosimilar insulins, and generic drugs. My thoughts on SB-852 are covered in an interview in Radar on Specialty Pharmacy. Shafrin tells AIS Health that there are two key reasons for manufacturers to…
HTA are ignoring the value of reduced caregiver burden
While many health technology assessment (HTA) organizations acknowledge that many new treatments reduce the burden placed on caregivers, the value that these new treatments provide is rarely incorporated into formal cost effectiveness analyses. This is the finding from Pennington (2020) based on a review of ll published technology appraisals (TAs) and highly specialized technologies (HSTs).…
Quotation of the Day
Thought can be lofty without being elegant, but to the extent it lacks elegance it will have less effect on others. Force without finesse is mere mass. Fernando Pessoa from The Book of Disquiet
Friday Links
AZ/J&J resume COVID-19 trials. Nature and Predictors of Response Changes in Modified-Delphi Panels. Thanksgiving and COVID-19 risks. Misleading maps? Average annual premium for a family of four is $21,342.
Why doesn’t the US have nationalized health care?
This is one of the main topics explored by the interesting book Remedy and Reaction by Paul Starr. The U.S. has gotten close to national health insurance programs a number of times. One of the first times was in New York after World War I. The one state where compulsory health insurance came close to…
FDA’s use of real-world data
The 21st Century Cures Act required the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) establish a program for evaluating the use of real-world data (RWD) to support the approval of new indications for drugs. Real-world data is typically data from either health insurance claims, electronic health records (EHRs), patient registries, or mobile devices. But how has FDA…
Health systems seize patients home equity to pay medical bills
University of Virginia Health System (UVA Health) has gone after patients’ homes to pay for medical bills. Kaiser Health News reports: UVA Health and other medical systems rarely force the sale of a home to claim money. Instead, they wait for families to refinance or sell, taking their cut at the settlement table. But with…
What makes a great economist?
From John Maynard Keynes’ Essays in Biography: The study of economics does not seem to require any specialized gifts of an unusually high order. Is it not, intellectually regarded, a very easy subject compared with the higher branches of philosophy and pure science? Yet good, or even competent, economists are the rarest of birds. An…