Links
Sanofi joins 340B lawsuit. Kaiser behavioral health workers on strike. Apologia of PBMs. Status of brain-computer interfaces. How old is the moon?
Category: Uncategorized
How does socioeconomic status—and how it is measured—impact wait times?
Many studies have found that patients with lower socioeconomic status (SES) have worse access to care. For instance, patients from lower SES have longer wait times (see review papers Landi et al. 2018 and Siciliani 2016). One key question is whether these disparities depend on how socioeconomic status is measured: at the individual level or…
What is HEMA?
The Pink Sheet reports on a new international health technology assessment (HTA) body: Health Economics Methods Advisory group (HEMA). The Health Economics Methods Advisory group (HEMA) is a new, independent group of health technology assessment agencies from the US, England and Canada that will work together to develop recommendations on adopting novel health economic methods…
Speculation on RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary
From Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution: One of the problems with an RFK Jr. ascendancy is that his core views, which run strongly against vaccines and pharmaceuticals, make it unlikely that any of these reimbursement revisions will be done in a rational or scientific way. The best evidence indicates that pharmaceuticals are a relatively cost-effective ways of saving…
There is no placebo effect…but we still need them!
That is the argument from an interesting post on the Carcinisation website titled “A Case Against the Placebo Effect“. In short, the authors argue that placebos in-and-of-themselves may have small impact out health outcomes. However, care practices in clinical trials may be different such that health outcomes improve or people feel more cared for in…
Do Treatment Sequencing / Pathways Models Have a Place in Health Technology Assessment?
That is the title of an ISPOR Europe panel I saw with Hugo Pedder, Jeroen Jansen, Dawn Lee and Mark Harries. The goal of sequential pathways model is to be able to answers questions like (i) how does a new treatment impact the cost and effectiveness for patients within a sequence of treatment, or (ii)…
Links
Tyler Cowen on the price of Ozempic. Problems with the OMB’s social welfare function. Link between alcohol and cancer. Disparities in the rural-urban life expectancy. Why will Part D plans “…move drugs that are selected for [MFP] negotiation into a higher cost-sharing tier”?
Does PBM Market Share Vary by Payer Type?
A paper by Qato et al. (2024) quantifies the degree of of pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) market concentration. Across all payer types, the PBM market was highly concentrated, with an HHI [Herfindahl Hirschman Index (HHI)] of 1972…the HHI was lowest in commercial insurance (1940), with 90 PBM participants, and highest in Medicare Part D (2399),…
How should family spillover effects be measured in HTA?
A paper by Campbell et al. (2024) provides some guidance. The authors developed a series of recommendations based on literature review, expert interviews and an expert workshop in order to support consistent and transparent evaluation and use of validated family spillover effects in health technology assessments (HTA) and cost-effectiveness analyses (CEA). The expert panel consisted…
What is the right sample size for a qualitative interview study?
The answer to this question, of course, depends on your specific research question. However, it is helpful to review what has been done in previous literature. A paper by Vasileiou et al. (2018) conducted a systematic literature review of all published studies using a single-interview-per-participant designs within three health-related journals: British Medical Journal (BMJ), British…