Author: Peter

Using data from privately-insured adults, new findings from The University of Texas...revealed that there is a lower level of opioids prescribed in states that have allowed the use of medical marijuana...We found that the overall prescription opioid use increased by age, which we expected. But, when we looked at the results within different age groups, opioid prescription rates varied depending on the stringency of state cannabis laws. In particular, states that implemented medical cannabis laws had lower rates of opioid prescription in people aged 18 to 54...Initially, opioids were seen as a way to ease pain and their use became widespread over time, with little attention paid to possible side effects or the risk of addiction...READ MORE

Medical software company Allscripts has bought ZappRx, a start-up that aimed to modernize how people access prescription medicines...Allscripts’ core business is selling electronic medical record software to hospitals and other health providers...ZappRx specializes in helping people access the class of so-called specialty medicines, which includes expensive and high-complex or high-cost interventions...READ MORE

Despite significant improvements in the number of insured adults and children, Nevada ranked 48th in the nation for overall health care in a 2019 scorecard released by the Commonwealth Fund...The report scored the Silver State at 50th for access and affordability, 51st for prevention and treatment, 38th for avoidable hospital use and cost and 39th for the healthiness of its residents’ lifestyles. The only category in which the state outperformed the national average was in health care disparities — the gap between the level of care received between lower- and higher-income residents — at 24th...READ MORE

As rural hospital closures roil the country, some states are banking on a Trump administration proposal to change the way hospital payments are calculated to rescue them...The goal of the proposal, unveiled by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma...is to bump up Medicare’s reimbursements to rural hospitals, some of which receive the lowest rates in the nation...By law, any proposed changes in the calculation of Medicare payments must be budget-neutral; in other words, the federal government can’t spend more money than previously allocated. That would mean any change would have a Robin Hood-like effect: increasing payments to some hospitals and decreasing them to others...READ MORE

A Canadian advisory council studying prescription drug coverage said...the federal government should create a C$15.3 billion ($11.5 billion) universal, single-payer public pharmacare system, and warned that the current system requires a major overhaul...Canada is the only country with a universal health care system that does not include universal coverage for prescription drugs. Most prescriptions are paid for through employer-funded drug plans, while some are covered by government programs for the elderly, or people with low incomes or very high costs...If implemented in full, the plan would likely cut into profits of insurers and drugmakers in Canada, while saving employers and patients money...READ MORE

Samantha DiGrande, Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Woodcock is director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. She sat down with BioPharma Dive...for a wide-ranging interview that touched on accelerated approvals, emerging clinical trial designs and her long-term concerns for the agency...

• Renewed debate over accelerated approval
• An adaptive future for clinical trials
• Optimism on continuous manufacturing

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services approved a request...from Washington state to negotiate value-based drug rebate agreements with pharmaceutical manufacturers in its Medicaid program...The approval makes Washington the fourth state to test such an arrangement; similar policies have already been given the OK in Oklahoma, Michigan and Colorado, according to an announcement from CMS...Washington officials are aiming to test a “subscription” model for hepatitis C drugs...In this model, Medicaid would pay a fixed annual sum to a drug company for the hepatitis C medication, purchasing an unrestricted supply of the drug... CMS is committed to increasing states’ flexibility to develop policies that lower costs, increase the predictability of expenses and improve access for patients...READ MORE

Nicole Grassano, PTNN, Pharmacy Week in Review, this weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

The 2014 study found that between 1999 and 2010, states with medical cannabis laws had a nearly 25% lower average rate of opioid overdose deaths than states without such laws. Much has changed since 2010 — 34 states have now legalized medical marijuana and the number of opioid overdose deaths was six times higher in 2017 than it was in 1999 — so Stanford University researchers decided to replicate the original study...But when they expanded the time frame through 2017, the association between medical marijuana laws and opioid overdose deaths reversed: States with medical marijuana laws had average rates of opioid overdose deaths that were nearly 23% higher than those without these laws...READ MORE