Month: May 2024

Cost–effectiveness of sotagliflozin for the treatment of patients with diabetes and recent worsening heart failure

Jason Shafrin

That is the title of my article with Jaehong Kim, Shanshan Wang and Slaven Sikirica in the Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research. The abstract is below. Aim: To assesses the cost–effectiveness of sotagliflozin for the treatment of patients hospitalized with heart failure and comorbid diabetes.  Materials & methods: A de novo cost–effectiveness model with a Markov structure was created…

Links

Jason Shafrin

South Park on the American health care system Social science genomics. Blood donation or high interest loan? Cost doesn’t equal quality (1, 2, 3) Will the market accept cell therapies?

VA News on Memorial Day

Jason Shafrin

As I do every Memorial Day, I highlight some recent news about the health care system serving our veterans, Veterans Affairs (VA). First off, VA is starting to use social determinants of health, and health-related social needs when conducting hospital discharge planning. VA deputy assistant IG Julie Kroviak: “…there’s a citation in the report where…

Does physician-hospital integration reduce ACO cost?

Jason Shafrin

The answer is ‘yes’ from a paper by Lin et al. (2024). Using 2009-2013 data from the Massachusetts All-Payer Claims Database, the authors measured physician–hospital integration within an accountable care organization (ACO) based on the proportion of primary care physicians (PCPs) in an ACO who billed for outpatient services with a place-of-service code indicating that…

Will IRA increase CMS drug spending?

Jason Shafrin

Potentially so, argues Adam Fein of Drug Channels. There are two mechanisms for this. First, for drugs not covered in the maximum fair price negotiations, Fein argues that drugs with high list prices and large rebates would lead to more net savings compared to drugs with lower list price and rebates in part because in…

The BIOSECURE Act: Q&A

Jason Shafrin

What is it? The BIOSECURE Act is a bill seeks to stop firms that receive federal funds from using select Chinese service companies. These include the genomics firms BGI, MGI, and Complete Genomics; and WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics. These firms are deemed by the bill as foreign “companies of concern”. Why does it matter?…

Helping the paralyzed move

Jason Shafrin

Technology is amazing. From The Economist: Fourteen years ago, Melanie Reid, a journalist, fell off a horse and broke her neck. The injury to her spinal cord left her paralysed, limiting the function of her four limbs and torso—a condition known as tetraplegia. For more than a decade her left hand was incapable of either…

A primer on brand-name prescription drug contracting

Jason Shafrin

The above is the title of a helpful primer from Kenney and Keast (2024). I summarize some key points below. Provide an overview of the pharmacy contracts between stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem. How did the rise of health maintenance organizations (HMOs) impact pharmacy contracting? The Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) Act of1973 spurred the growth…