Managed Care Cast

This week, the top managed care stories included speculation regarding who would replace Tom Price, MD, as HHS secretary; a report on breast cancer mortality trends and racial disparities from 1989 to 2015; and the FDA announced new strategies to improve patient access to less expensive drugs.

This week, the top managed care stories included the end of the latest attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act; a call to include the patient's voice in cancer quality metrics; and an argument for caution regarding the newly approved CAR T-cell therapy, Kymriah.

Recovering from the devastation in hurricane-affected areas will take a long time, as Michael Griffin, president and CEO and Daughters of Charity Services of New Orleans, knows well. Twelve years after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast city, New Orleans is still recovering. In a discussion with Patricia Salber, MD, MBA, of The Doctor Weighs In, Griffin explains his experience in New Orleans, where the recovery currently is, and what lessons he's learned that hard hit areas, like Puerto Rico can take note of during these difficult months and years of rebuilding.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast. This week, the top managed care stories included a new direction for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation; a bipartisan group of governors spoke out against the latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act; and the World Health Organization warned that antibiotics currently being developed were not enough to fight antibiotic-resistant infections.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast. This week, the top stories in managed care included competing healthcare reform bills in the Senate; the FDA announced progress in clearing up the backlog of orphan drug requests; and a study examines how much it really costs to bring a drug to the market.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast. This week, the top managed care stories included more insurers rolling back participation in Affordable Care Act exchanges, while governors testify ways to stabilize the market; the FDA put 3 combination trials of nivolumab on hold; and a study finds very few visits to the emergency department are truly avoidable.

In New Jersey, the call went out to find volunteer nurses willing to travel down to Texas to help with relief efforts and assist those nurses who were tired and overworked in the flood zone, and 50 nurses answered the call within a few days.

This week, the top stories in managed care include a disaster relief efforts in Houston after Hurricane Harvey; the approval of the first gene therapy in the United States; and a new cardiovascular indication for a popular drug to treat type 2 diabetes.

This week, the top stories in managed care include a study on which mammogram recommendations to follow; findings that continuous glucose monitoring benefits patients with type 2 diabetes; and a new position statement on treating patients with diabetes and hypertension.

Surviving cancer doesn't mean the challenges are all in the past. After cancer is treated and cured, many survivors still face financial debt and lingering toxcities that impact their lives. Samantha Eisenstein Watson, MBA, CEO and founder of The Samfund, explains the challenges that young adult cancer survivors, in particular, go through and how her organization tries to help alleviate some of the financial burden. Plus, a look at what the effects of cancer treatment mean for fertility and what challenges this represents for young adults.

This week, the top managed care articles included a report from the Congressional Budget Office on the impact of eliminating the Affordable Care Act's cost-sharing reduction payments; a decision from CMS to eliminate 2 mandatory bundled payment programs; and a new value-based alliance that called for ending use of a test for diagnosing heart attacks.

There is a lot of evolution happening in healthcare in a number of areas, including policy, technology, and the market, explained Deanne Kasim, founding partner of Santesys Solutions.

This week, a look at the politics of right-to-try legislation; research finds the FDA's expedited review programs have been successful; and a review of guidelines from American College of Cardiology, the American Diabetes Association, and the American Heart Association highlights the best way to prevent cardiovascular risk in patients with diabetes.

This week, a bipartisan group of members of the House of Representatives released proposals for fixing the Affordable Care Act (ACA); the FDA approved a targeted therapy for patients with acute myeloid leukemia who have a rare genetic mutation; and a study found that since the ACA was implemented, more patients have gained access to clinical trials.

This week, Republicans in the Senate broke ranks and rejected multiple measures to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act; CMS put out a call for ideas for new payment models in behavioral healthcare; and AJMC® ​publishes 2 studies on empowering consumers to find the best prices for medications.

This week, the top managed care stories included more twists in Senate Republicans' efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act as first the bill to repeal and replace failed to garner enough votes and then an idea to repeal only was a non-starter; a Medicare fraud sweep targeted opioid distribution; and the CDC reported 30 million Americans now have diabetes.

In his new book, Mistreated: Why We Think We're Getting Good Health Care—and Why We're Usually Wrong, Robert Pearl, MD, the former CEO of Kaiser Permanente discusses the cost of healthcare in the United States relative to outcomes and ways to fix the system. During his interview with Patricia Salber, MD, MBA, Pearl explains what has caused the high costs of care in the United States and what can be done to address them, how poor communication between providers and institutions leads to poor care and preventable issues, changing the context of medicine and demands by patients and employers, and more.

This Week in Managed Care—Insurers Avoid HealthCare.gov, and Other Health News by Managed Care Cast

This Week in Managed Care—Senators Hear Reactions to Health Bill, and Other News by Managed Care Cast

This week, the top managed care news included the Senate announcing it would delay voting on the healthcare bill until after July 4; the FDA outlined a plan to expedite drug approvals; and Joe and Jill Biden launched the Biden Cancer Initiative.