Patient or Corporate Advocacy Organizations? - New Studies Shed Some Light
This study analyzed public records (US Internal Revenue Service form 990 tax reports, annual reports and website) on the largest US based patient advocacy organizations, that is, those with revenues of at least $7.5 million. Its goal was to determine how well these organizations disclose conflicts of interests, and how they have COIs, and what policies they have to mitigate their effects.Its main results were that:-Disclosure was modest. 88% of organizations disclosed their donors, 52% disclosed approximate amounts of donations, but only 5% disclosed exact amounts. 74% provided some information about the ...
Source: Health Care Renewal - March 3, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: conflicts of interest deception health care corruption institutional conflicts of interest patient advocacy groups Source Type: blogs
Chronic Pain and the Opioid Epidemic: Wicked Issues Have No Simple Solutions
Written By Myra ChristopherMy mom was a steel magnolia (i.e., southern and perfectly charming), but she had a steel rod up her back. After her first surgery for stomach cancer at age 53, she refused pain medication because she said that she “could take it.” She was young and strong and committed to “beating cancer.” After nearly two years of chemotherapy, radiation and two more surgeries, the cancer won. Eventually, I watched her beg nurses to give her “a shot” minutes before another was scheduled and be told they were sorry but she would have to wait. I could tell by the expressions on ...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - January 23, 2017 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Practical Bioethics Tags: Health Care chronic pain Opioid addiction Opioid Epidemic Opioid prescriptions syndicated Source Type: blogs
Get Health Insurance Through Your Employer? ACA Repeal Will Affect You, Too
Much of the recent attention on the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has focused on the fate of the 22.5 million people likely to lose insurance through a repeal of Medicaid expansion and the loss of protections and subsidies in the individual insurance market. Overlooked in the declarations of who stands to lose under plans to “repeal and replace” the ACA are those enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans — the primary source of coverage for people under 65.
Job-based plans offered to employees and their families cover 150 million people in the United States. If the ACA is repealed, they stand to lose ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - January 11, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: JoAnn Volk Tags: Featured Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Quality ACA repeal and replace employer-sponsored coverage Employer-Sponsored Insurance Source Type: blogs
The Adventurous are Undergoing Enhancement Gene Therapies
As I've been saying for the past couple of years, gene therapies are straightforward enough and cheap enough to carry out that people are doing it, usually quietly, but it is happening. You only have to be connected enough to know a biotechnologist or two with the right skills, as the example here shows. The stage of the adventurous and the self-experimenters is an important part of the development of any new medical technology, helping to overcome institutional reluctance while gathering initial data on how best to approach such treatments in practice. The next part of the process, something that does requires much greate...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 10, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 170 Christmas Edition
Just when you thought your brain could unwind on a Friday, you realise that it would rather be challenged with some good old fashioned medical trivia FFFF…introducing Funtabulously Frivolous Friday Five 170 Christmas Edition
Question 1
Why is Christmas disease so named?
+ Reveal the Funtabulous Answer
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Haemophilia B was first recognized as a different kind of haemophilia in 1952, named after Stephen Christmas, the first patient described with this disease.
If that was not festive enough for you then the first re...
Source: Life in the Fast Lane - December 23, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Neil Long Tags: Frivolous Friday Five bowel perforation brussel sprouts Christmas accidents christmas cake decoration Christmas disease Christmas pudding Haemophilia B stephen christmas vitamin k warfarin Source Type: blogs
Reminder: Keep it simple for outpatients
As a clinical student, I’ve been a part of dozens of outpatient clinic visits, but several days ago, I witnessed a clinic visit much unlike the others.
For one, our patient arrived not for a 20-minute appointment, but for a three-hour one. As a hemophiliac, this patient came to Stanford once a year, for a comprehensive, coordinated patient care visit, where she saw not only her hematologist but also her social worker, dietitian, nurse coordinator, physical therapist and others. I had the privilege of sitting in on this patient’s entire visit, witnessing the full spectrum of care coordination, and I found myself wonderi...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 1, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/hamsika-chandrasekar" rel="tag" > Hamsika Chandrasekar < /a > Tags: Education Primary care Source Type: blogs
Keeping A Finger On The PULSE Of Blood Donation Policy After Orlando
On June 12, 2016, a gunman murdered 49 people at PULSE, a Florida LGBT nightclub, in the most lethal mass shooting in U.S. history. Many more were critically injured, requiring blood transfusions and exacerbating the need for blood donors in the Orlando area.
Yet gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) who wanted to donate blood were turned away. Garrett Jurss, for example, is a gay man who showed up to donate after the urgent call for blood, but was turned away because of the MSM blood policy. “I want to be able to help my brothers and sisters that are out there, that are suffering right now,” Jurss s...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 1, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Adam Eickmeyer Tags: Equity and Disparities Featured Quality blood donations DONATE Act FDA HIV/AIDS LGBT Source Type: blogs
EpiPen may still be too cheap
Good stuff, cheap
Pick up a newspaper or surf the web and you’ll find story after story taking Mylan to task for EpiPen pricing practices. The list price of a 2-pack has soared from about $100 to $600 over the past decade. The price is deemed too high and the rate of increase is considered particularly unconscionable.
Let me offer a brief counterargument:
EpiPen is worth the price. A $300 pen regularly rescues children from anaphylactic shock that would otherwise be fatal, offering them the chance to live to 100 instead of dying at 10. (About 20% of patients need a second dose, which is why these devices ar...
Source: Health Business Blog - August 26, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: dewe67 Tags: Pharma Policy and politics Source Type: blogs
Hold on. Ready For It? EpiPen May Actually Still Be Too Cheap!!!
By DAVID E. WILLIAMS
Pick up a newspaper or surf the web and you’ll find story after story taking Mylan to task for EpiPen pricing practices. The list price of a 2-pack has soared from about $100 to $600 over the past decade. The price is deemed too high and the rate of increase is considered particularly unconscionable.
Let me offer a brief counterargument:
EpiPen is worth the price. A $300 pen regularly rescues children from anaphylactic shock that would otherwise be fatal, offering them the chance to live to 100 instead of dying at 10. (About 20% of patients need a second dose, which is why these devices are...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 26, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
How Patient Groups Have Begun To Influence The Value And Coverage Debate
In 2015, two issues related to medicine could be relied on to generate headlines: drug pricing and the proliferation of new value frameworks that claimed to define the value and even the price of drugs in seemingly easy-to-understand ways. In none of the high-profile skirmishes on pricing or frameworks was the voice or perspective of patients and patient groups very much in evidence. But that is beginning to change, in an evolution of a broader shift in the role that patients are playing in the research and development (R&D) enterprise.
A New Culture of Engagement
Patients and patient organizations are becoming ever mo...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 10, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Margaret Anderson and Kristin Schneeman Tags: Costs and Spending Health Professionals Organization and Delivery Quality clinical research patient use of evidence venture philanthropy Source Type: blogs
Really???
In today’s New York Times, embedded in a report about drug companies wooing hemophilia patients, I came across a drug company with the name BIOETHICS ADVANTAGE. What to say??? (Source: blog.bioethics.net)
Source: blog.bioethics.net - January 14, 2016 Category: Medical Ethics Authors: denasdavis Tags: Health Care syndicated Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
A Year in Review: FDA 2015 New Drug Approvals
The approval of first-of-a-kind drugs rose last year to forty-one, resulting in the highest level of newly approved U.S. drugs in nineteen years. The total number of new drugs approved last year was even higher at sixty-nine. The rising figures reflect an industry-wide desire to research and develop drugs for rare and hard-to-treat diseases.
The newly approved drugs serve to advance medical care and the health of patients suffering from many ailments, including various forms of cancer, heart failure, and cystic fibrosis. Additionally, more than 40% of the new therapies were approved for treatment of rare or "orphan" dise...
Source: Policy and Medicine - January 13, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Pharmacy Benefit Managers Begin to Cut Ties With Specialty Pharmacies
Conclusion
As these cases continue to wind their way through the courts, it is unknown if they will be joined by others. However, what is known is that all pharmacies can likely expect greater oversight after the disclosures of Valeant and Philidor.
Related StoriesMedicare Releases Drug Data to the Public: Medicare Drug Spending Dashboard 2014Health and Human Services Drug Pricing ForumSenators McCain and Grassley Request HHS for Approval of Importation of Certain Drugs (Source: Policy and Medicine)
Source: Policy and Medicine - January 11, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Implementing Health Reform: Essential Community Providers; The Contraceptive Coverage Accommodation
The week of August 27, 2015 was quiet in terms of Affordable Care Act implementation activities, but there were at the end of the week on August 21 a couple of noteworthy developments.
First, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published in the Federal Register notice of a new collection of data regarding essential community providers (ECPs) to support the certification of qualified health plans (QHPs) for plan year 2017. Later in the day, CMS published the data collection forms and supporting statements at its Paperwork Reduction Act website.
The ACA requires QHP insurers, including Stand-alone Dental Plan ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 23, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Equity and Disparities Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Source Type: blogs
