The BATMAN (Basilica Technique with MitraClip for Anatomically Nonconforming) procedure is a novel transcatheter approach designed to treat severe mitral regurgitation (MR) in patients who are poor candidates for traditional surgical or standard transcatheter solutions. MR, a condition where the heart's mitral valve does not close tightly, leads to blood leaking backward into the heart, causing symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath, and eventual heart failure.
Conference organizers and the San Francisco Police Department ramped up security in the wake of the December shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The SFPD said in a statement that it had canceled some officers' time off "to ensure that sufficient officers are on hand throughout the conference" and that the entirety of the four-day event will be "fully staffed."
The company owes $400 million to vendors across its 16 safety-net hospitals in four states.
Bankrupt Prospect Medical Holdings did not pay vendors to provide basic medical supplies, and its hospital leaders in Rhode Island on Tuesday morning were forced to delay surgeries. Prospect, a national for-profit health care chain, owns and operates Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital in North Providence, and filed bankruptcy late Saturday night. During the corporation’s first hearing in a Dallas courtroom, Prospect Chief Restructuring OfficerPaul Rundell said Tuesday afternoon that he spent his morning working with executives at the company's two Rhode Island hospitals to work out arrangements to pay vendors in advance.
Prospect Medical Holdings is the latest sordid tale of legalized hospital embezzlement killing patients and communities. But the judge assigned to its bankruptcy raises eyebrows in a good way.
The markups helped the PBMs reap $7.3 billion from 2017 to 2022.
The largest pharmacy-benefit managers hiked the prices of dozens of drugs dispensed through their own pharmacies, according to a new report by the Federal Trade Commission released on Tuesday.
The markups helped the PBMs reap $7.3 billion from 2017 to 2022, the FTC found. The PBMs—owned by insurers Cigna, CVS Health and UnitedHealth Group—are supposed to help keep drug costs low for employers and other clients.
The last-minute report in the final full week of the Biden administration follows an earlier agency report that detailed tactics the drug managers use to boost their profits, with the agency saying the practices raised costs for employers and patients. PBMs disputed those findings.
President-elect Donald Trump has declared his intention to target drug middlemen practices, though he hasn't offered detailed policy proposals. He nominated a replacement for Lina Khan, head of the Biden FTC, who has made healthcare competition a priority.
Drug benefit managers have been under fire from both Republicans and Democrats for years, with both sides of the aisle proposing legislation targeting the companies. Restrictions on their pricing practices came close to passing Congress last month but were taken out of a spending package at the last minute. PBMs have said they don't deserve the scrutiny because they work to bring prices down overall for their clients, insurers and employers.
Over the report's study period, PBMs paid their pharmacies markups of thousands of percent in some cases, and by hundreds of percent in many other cases. For example, the PBMs marked up the price of dimethyl fumarate, a multiple sclerosis treatment known by the brand name Tecfidera, by more than 2,000% in commercial health plans and by more than 1,500% in Medicare plans when disbursed through their own pharmacies.
Since society rebounded from the pandemic, Teladoc Health has gone from a soaring rocket ship considered an emblem of the potential of health tech to a cautionary tale about overblown hype. Its telehealth services are now viewed by many as an interchangeable commodity in a crowded market.