Month: February 2023
Senators pilloried the lack of transparency from pharmacy benefit managers during a hearing Thursday, as lawmakers hope to pass reforms this session.
A key Senate panel is launching a major effort to shore up the healthcare workforce after lingering shortages have roiled the industry. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee held a hearing Thursday on addressing the crisis. Some of the policy solutions include expanding the Graduate Medical Education program and growing teaching health ...
Union-aligned Democrats were set to introduce legislation Wednesday mandating a statewide $25 minimum wage for health workers and support staffers, likely setting up a pitched battle with hospitals, nursing homes, and dialysis clinics. State Sen. María Elena Durazo’s bill would require health facilities and home health agencies to give raises to many support employees, including ...
A report released on Friday found that HIPAA complaints and breaches spiked between 2017 and 2021, with the agency in charge of handling the notices saying it lacks sufficient resources to properly respond. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to submit an ...
When billionaire Mark Cuban announced his attack on the pharmaceutical industry and its high-priced drugs in January 2021, it was met with cheers. His new company — the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Co., known as Cost Plus Drugs — has the “lowest prices on meds anywhere,” he said. The serial entrepreneur and owner of the NBA’s ...
Immunity acquired from a Covid infection provides strong, lasting protection against the most severe outcomes of the illness, according to research published Thursday in The Lancet — protection, experts say, that’s on par with what’s provided through two doses of an mRNA vaccine. Infection-acquired immunity cut the risk of hospitalization and death from a Covid reinfection by 88% for at ...
Social media can have as powerful an influence on physicians as they do on the public, according to a new survey conducted by Sermo and LiveWorld. Of the 50-plus pharma marketers and 200-plus U.S. physicians surveyed, more than half (57%) of doctors said they frequently or occasionally change their initial perception of a medication due ...
Dr. Timothy McAvoy, an internist from Waukesha, Wisconsin, held his infant granddaughter Tuesday while standing in the Longworth House Office Building, waiting to talk to a congressional aide about increasing Medicare pay for doctors. Facing a highly partisan Congress where Republicans have vowed to cut federal spending, McAvoy hoped his Midwestern charm, along with a ...
About four years ago, Dr. Gene Dorio sat on the ethics committee of a Southern California hospital whose administrators insisted they could decide whether to disconnect a ventilator from an unconscious patient — even though the man’s wife and adult children wanted to continue life support. The problem, Dorio told California lawmakers last year, was ...
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations inched up this week in Clark County and statewide, while remaining at some of the lowest levels of the pandemic.