Ridding Pennsylvania's health care system of private investors is part of Gov. Josh Shapiro's new budget plan, which calls for additional regulatory muscle to review hospital and nursing home sales, mergers and acquisitions. Shapiro this week asked the General Assembly for a bill that would empower the state attorney general to review health care transactions "with the community's best interest at the forefront." Two dozen other states already have such authority, but efforts to enact the necessary legislation in Pennsylvania have fallen short. House Bill 2344, which would have given the state attorney general the additional review powers Shapiro wants, passed the full House in July and was taken up in October by the Senate, where it died.
Kroger Health has entered into a new agreement with Express Scripts to expand prescription medication and health service access to Express Scripts customers. This partnership allows the Kroger Family of Pharmacies to immediately start serving Express Scripts' Medicare Part D and Tricare/Department of Defense plan members. The move comes as Kroger continues to strengthen its healthcare presence. The agreement notably increases the reach of Kroger's health services, potentially impacting more than 100 million people in the United States who are under Express Scripts plans, including commercial and Medicaid clients.
Kroger Health is a significant player in the retail healthcare sector, with over 2,200 pharmacies across 35 states and telehealth services through The Little Clinic in nine states. The company's healthcare team, numbering 24,000, delivers a range of services with an emphasis on the integration of food as a key component of health and wellness.
The U.S. government will pay the vaccine maker Moderna $176 million to accelerate development of a pandemic influenza vaccine that could be used to treat bird flu in people, as concern grows about cases in dairy cows across the country. Moderna already has a bird flu vaccine in very early-stage testing that uses the same mRNA technology that allowed rapid development and rollout of vaccines to protect against COVID-19. The new funds from HHS include continued development of the vaccine, including a late-stage trial next year if those early study results are positive.
How do you create a healthcare company that is known for being “superior” on some critical dimension? Indeed, there are few examples where the practice brand is more valuable and important in driving patient decision-making than the doctor brand.
Scientists remain puzzled as to why some individuals taking popular weight loss and diabetes medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy develop complications with their eyesight, highlighting that we still have a lot to learn about this relatively new class of drugs.