In December, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new obesity drug, Saxenda, the fourth prescription medicine the agency has given the green light to fight obesity since 2012. But even though two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese, there's a good chance their insurer won't cover Saxenda or other anti-obesity drugs. The health benefits of using obesity drugs to lose weight — improvements in blood sugar and risk factors for heart disease, among other things — may not be immediately apparent. "For things that are preventive in the long term, it makes plan sponsors think about their strategy," says Dr. Steve Miller, the chief medical officer at Express Scripts, which manages the prescription drug benefits for thousands of companies.
Teach someone to fish, the saying goes, and they'll eat for a lifetime. Teach a nurse to become more involved in helping people heal, and patients could enjoy a longer life. That's the philosophy behind training nurses to mentor other nurses, says Sheila Davis, chief nursing officer and chief of Ebola response for Partners in Health, the worldwide nonprofit organization. PIH introduced nurse mentorship programs in Rwanda in 2010 and Haiti in 2012 — and plans to expand to Ebola-stricken Liberia and Sierra Leone. We spoke to Davis about how raising nurses' expertise has very real benefits for patients.
Dr. Eric Wong, a neurologist with an engineering background, had a hunch that an experimental scalp device to treat brain tumors using electromagnetic fields would work. But some other researchers scoffed at Wong, co-director of the tumor center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Doctors at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, for example, rejected Wong's request in 2010 to join a study of the device in patients with glioblastomas — the deadly type of brain cancer that killed Senator Edward M. Kennedy — because they doubted the electromagnetic fields could penetrate the skull. So Wong wound up referring patients to other facilities — Tufts Medical Center and Lahey Hospital — participating in a study of the device, called Optune, in newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients.
About 400,000 patients had appointments with doctors via webcam in 2014 and experts expect that number to double this year. Large employers also have started offering the virtual doctor visits, via phone or web, as a benefit to their employees, including about 19 percent of large companies (500 or more employees) in the Chicago area, according to Mercer data. The growth is driven by the fact that people feel more comfortable with technology than ever before, experts say, and insurers are starting to pick up the tab.
If you ever watched The Jetsons as a kid, you probably were enthralled by—but also a little skeptical of—the robotic contraptions, holograms, and other crazy-seeming inventions that propelled their lives every day. You can go ahead and suspend that disbelief now, because the next time you visit the hospital, you'll find that the world of the Jetsons is already here. Take, for instance, Gigi, the germ zapping robot that sweeps patient rooms for lingering infectious germs. Gigi, much like Judy from the Jetsons, is operated remotely, blasting a disinfecting ultraviolet light that offers zero chance for any transference of infectious disease.
Health insurance companies are gearing up for another fight with the Obama administration over payments to Medicare Advantage (MA), the private alternative to traditional Medicare. The industry is hoping to rack up another win by keeping MA rates stable in February, when the administration is expected to propose new payment levels for the plans. Lobbyists fear that the administration might reduce those payment rates in an effort to equalize per-capita spending between traditional Medicare and MA, which is known for free perks such as eyeglasses and hearing aids. But America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the trade association that represents the private health insurance industry, argues any reductions will hurt seniors.