Drugmakers’ ability to restrict discounts is currently being litigated in court. But more companies have enacted policies limiting such discounts since the time of a new 340B Health report, so it likely underestimates hospital losses.
The study will test a version of the biotech’s COVID-19 shot that’s tailored to the infectious variant. New data, meanwhile, help affirm the benefit of a third dose of Moderna’s current vaccine.
Hospitals are still grappling with rising turnover, widespread burnout and numerous staff calling in sick nearly two years after the pandemic began. It’s unclear when it might get better — or how much worse it could get.
A key driver behind spending at the health system is prices, not increased utilization, according to the Health Policy Commission, which is charged with policing healthcare cost growth in the state.
Membership targets for the coming year, for one, “look a shade light,” one analyst noted, though Anthem said it expects COVID-19 to cause less of a headwind in 2022 than in years prior.
The agency is sending payments to more than 7,600 healthcare providers nationwide this week to help them as staffing challenges and heightened labor expenses pose new financial challenges.
Michael Cantor is a geriatrician with more than two decades of experience in the healthcare industry.
The hospital lobby also is renewing its push in requesting the Federal Trade Commission investigate travel-nurse staffing firms for anticompetitive behavior as facilities have seen elevated pay rates throughout the pandemic.
Though progress has been made, compliance with parity laws is still patchwork in the U.S., even as COVID-19 continues to throw disparities in health access into sharp relief.
The effort aims to gauge whether providers receiving federal relief funds to help survive the pandemic complied with restrictions on unexpected bills for COVID-19 inpatients.