Author: Scott Welch
Specialty drug trend remains high, although it decreased from 11.2% to 10.8% on a gross cost basis in Pharmacy Strategies Group’s 2026 State of Specialty Spend and Trend Report. Claim utilization is now the dominant driver of specialty drug trend as the percentage of members using specialty drugs rose to 5.5%. “For a decade, this ...
A federal appeals court has ruled that pharmaceutical manufacturers cannot unilaterally replace upfront discounts under the 340B Drug Pricing Program with after-the-fact rebates, affirming the federal government’s authority to approve how those price reductions are provided. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld lower court judgments against Novartis, Bristol Myers Squibb, ...
U.S. hospitals are now treating fewer patients with health insurance purchased through an ACA exchange. Hospitals are also seeing more uninsured patients and patients with skimpy commercial coverage. The patients with high-deductible commercial coverage seem to be waiting until later in the year, when they have met their deductibles, to have elective surgical procedures. Executives ...
A tiny federal agency tasked with protecting the public from injuries caused by lawn mowers and coffeemakers is demanding that some of the nation’s biggest health systems turn over detailed, personally identifiable medical records of all patients who seek help at their emergency rooms. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, responsible for tracking and issuing recalls ...
Figuring out who’s offering the best deal on heart surgeries or routine physicals isn’t the most pressing issue for everyday Americans. That hasn’t stopped lawmakers on Capitol Hill from trying to turn that kind of price transparency into their marquee bipartisan health care goal this year. Republican and Democratic lawmakers who advanced bills on the ...
The Trump administration cancelled $2 billion of research grants to University of California professors. Their legal team says it has proof that those terminations were unconstitutional.
Regularly cutting back on sleep could cause the number on the scale to creep up, according to new research. A study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that adults who got about 90 minutes less sleep each night for six weeks gained roughly one pound on average compared with periods when they got ...
The number of Nevadans enrolled in Affordable Care Act plans has fallen 12.5 percent in the months since an open enrollment period closed this January — a dropoff that’s double what the state saw last year and suggests higher prices and reduced subsidies were too much for some consumers to afford. Nevada — and the ...
Nevada health officials are preparing to phase in sweeping new work requirements for the largest safety-net insurance program in the state, a move that will impact an estimated 280,000 Nevadans who benefited from expanded Medicaid coverage. Under the tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed a year ago, Nevada and other states that expanded ...
The Nevada Health Authority is opening applications for grants under the Statewide Health Care Access and Recruitment Program (SHARP), a new funding initiative designed to address Nevada’s doctor shortage. Totaling up to $57.9 million, these grants will expand the health care workforce, strengthen clinical capacity, and improve patient access in certified areas of need. “SHARP ...