- Hackers hit two California hospitals with ransomware (healthcareitnews.com)
Two California hospitals – Chino Valley Medical Center in Chino and Desert Valley Hospital in Victorville – have been attacked by hackers demanding a ransom...The latest hit comes just a month after Hollywood Presbyterian paid hackers a $17,000 ransom to regain control over its computer systems and during the same week on the heels of ransomware attacks against Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Kentucky, and Ottawa Hospital in Ontario, Canada...Organizations with a good defense-in-depth strategy, advanced detection capabilities and solid response and contingency plans will fare far better when attacked...Make no mistake about it. Protecting information assets is a business issue and organizations that don't recognize this will pay for it.
- Obamacare Was Going to Lower Health Care Costs. What Actually Happened. (dailysignal.com)
Has Obamacare Reduced Costs?...Those family cost savings, of course, have not materialized...the health care cost curve is still on an upwardly mobile trajectory...Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data show that total per capita health insurance spending will rise from $7,786 in 2016 to $11,681 in 2024. Looking at the future of employer-based health insurance costs, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that job-based premiums are poised to increase by almost 60 percent between now and 2025...the Affordable Care Act...calls for sustained payment cuts to the popular Medicare Advantage program. It also has scheduled some big Medicare payment reductions over the next ten years for hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies and even hospice care programs...Medicare trustees report that, if policymakers really go through with these Affordable Care Act provisions, 50 percent of America’s hospitals, 70 percent of the nation’s nursing homes and 90 percent of the nation’s home health agencies will be operating in the red in the next 24 years...This...will jeopardize seniors’ access and quality of care.
- How much should that drug cost? Depends what disease it treats (statnews.com)
If a drug does a good job of treating lung cancer, but is less effective at combating pancreatic cancer, you might think that the price should be lower for pancreatic cancer patients. But it doesn’t work that way in the convoluted world of pharmaceutical pricing, where a one-size-fits-all approach is generally used...Now, though, a new drug pricing scheme is gaining traction that would base payments on how well a medicine actually works...The concept, which is known as indication-specific pricing, would set different prices for the same drug to reflect the extent to which a medicine is effective for multiple purposes. The goal is to calibrate spending with performance and, in turn, lower overall health care costs.
- FDA announces enhanced warnings for immediate-release opioid pain medications related to risks of misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose and death (fda.gov)
New safety warnings also added to all prescription opioid medications to inform prescribers and patients of additional risks related to opioid use...Food and Drug Administration...announced required class-wide safety labeling changes for immediate-release opioid pain medications...the FDA is requiring a new boxed warning about the serious risks of misuse, abuse, addiction, overdose and death...actions are among a number of steps the agency recently outlined in a plan to reassess its approach to opioid medications. The plan is focused on policies aimed at reversing the epidemic, while still providing patients in pain access to effective relief.
- AAP cooperative adds more than 300 independents with PIPCo acquisition (drugstorenews.com)
American Associated Pharmacies, a member-owned cooperative comprised of over 2,100 independent pharmacies located in 49 states, announced...that it has reached an agreement to acquire the assets of Partners in Pharmacy Cooperative, an independent pharmacy cooperative with more than 300 members in 19 states...The acquisition of PIPCo fits within AAP's growth strategy and solidifies its position as a leader in the independent pharmacy cooperative market... AAP has a successful track record of business consolidation, helping to strengthen independent pharmacy's influence in the marketplace...In addition, AAP realizes additional cost synergies through its recently announced joint venture, Arete Pharmacy Network, the fourth largest nationwide Prescription Service Administrative Organization.
- Mathematical model may improve hepatitis C drug treatment (upi.com)DAA medication could lead to revolution in hepatitis C treatment (news-medical.net)HCV kinetic and modeling analyses indicate similar time to cure among sofosbuvir combination regimens with daclatasvir, simeprevir or ledipasvir (abstract) (journal-of-hepatology.eu)
Treatment cost for the average patient would go down by 16 to 20 percent, but for 40 percent of patients, the cost may go down by as much as 50 percent...Hepatitis C patients are often cured before completing a treatment regimen, suggesting patients require less of the drugs needed to fight the disease, according to a recent study...Researchers at Loyola University devised a mathematical model that predicts the length of time patients need direct-acting antiviral drugs, potentially limiting the cost of being treated with an expensive drug...Using more frequent blood testing, the researchers were able to determine hepatitis C levels and predict when the drug sofosbuvir, combined with one of three others, could be stopped...Treatment currently is standardized to be given for a set period of time, not tailored to the patient...In many cases, this may result in the prolonged use of expensive drugs with essentially no additional positive effect...
- Four Takeaways on Drug Spending Realities from the New 2015 Express Scripts Drug Trend Report (drugchannels.net)Express Scripts 2015 Drug Trend Report (lwlink3.linkwithin.com)
Last week, Express Scripts released its new 2015 Drug Trend Report...For the first time, the Express Scripts data account for rebates—a meaningful and welcome improvement in reporting methodology. After accounting for rebates, the 2015 report reveals that drug spending growth is comparable to growth in other parts of the healthcare system. For some payers, utilization (script growth) was a bigger driver of spending than drug prices...So much for the myth of exploding drug costs! Our politicians may not believe it, but Martin Shkreli et al. are the exception in the pharmaceutical industry. Below, I review the four key highlights about traditional and specialty drug spending, trend patterns for different payers, and a red flag from upcoming biosimilar launches.
FOUR TAKEAWAYS
- Commercial payers were better able to control costs.
- More people are getting access, which is “good” spending.
- Specialty growth continues.
- Hunker down for the biosimilar formulary wars.
- Anthem and Express Scripts war could change the pharmacy benefits model (statnews.com)
The raging dispute between Anthem...and Express Scripts...is winning notice because the companies are battling over billions of dollars in prescription drug costs. Specifically, Anthem contends Express Scripts, which manages prescription drug benefits for health plans, failed to pass along rebates negotiated with drug makers...The battle, which is described in a lawsuit filed in federal court in New York...Anthem claims emphatically that Express Scripts has not been transparent because a third-party consultant conducted an audit and found the insurer was overpaying Express Scripts by about $3 billion annually...Anthem is seeking $15 billion in damages and wants out of its contract with Express Scripts...The outcome "could have far-reaching effects" on pharmacy benefits management..."The lawsuit challenges a fundamental aspect of PBM-insurer relationships: the value of a PBM’s negotiating power" with drug makers. The dispute could "embolden other (Express Scripts) clients to do the same" thing and claim they are not receiving rebates to which they are entitled...Another industry watcher...suggests that Anthem may have an additional motive for its lawsuit beyond recovering money. Anthem plans to merge with Cigna...which happens to have its own pharmacy benefits manager..."Anthem likely wants to bring its PBM function back in house as part of a combined Anthem-Cigna company,"..."Perhaps Anthem’s dispute with Express Scripts is in part a way to convince the FTC to approve the Anthem-Cigna merger because it would increase competition in the PBM market."...
- India defends right to issue drug ‘compulsory licenses’ (reuters.com)
India has defended its right to grant licenses allowing local firms to override patents and make cheaper copies of drugs discovered by big Western drugmakers, and said reports to the contrary were "factually incorrect"...The Commerce Ministry statement comes weeks after...media in India quoted the...U.S.-India Business Council, as saying India had given private assurances that it would not grant such "compulsory licenses"..."In this regard, it may be noted that India has a well-established TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) compliant legislative, administrative and judicial framework to safeguard IPRs (intellectual property rights). Under the Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement Public Health, each member has the right to grant compulsory licenses and the freedom to determine the grounds upon which such licenses are granted."...The USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) has placed India on its "priority watch" list for two years in a row, saying the country's patent laws unfairly favor local drug makers. A legal provision that allows granting of "compulsory licenses" has been a key bone of contention.
- When Opioids And NSAIDs Aren’t The Answer For Relief Of Chronic Pain, What Is? (forbes.com)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...issued a new guideline for prescribing opioids...for chronic pain that is not related to cancer or end-of-life care. The document’s goal is to curb...a doctor-driven prescription overdose epidemic...Of the guideline’s 12 recommendations, the top one states that non-drug or at least non-opioid drug approaches should be tried before opioids...the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services released a national pain strategy that emphasized the need to treat chronic pain with a variety of well-tested approaches, not just medication...Non-drug approaches to relieving chronic pain, such as exercise, weight loss and talk therapy, have the advantage of not needing warning labels, and research suggests that they can be as effective as NSAIDs. But they take more time and effort than swallowing a pill.