Peter Wehrwein, Managing Editor

The company increased its projection for its 2024 medical-benefits to 87.7%.

A study published in Health Affairs shows that lung and colorectal cancer mortality was higher among veterans who were unhoused compared with those who were housed and higher yet in those who lost housing after they received a diagnosis.

Republicans voted in favor of a bill that would prohibit the use quality-adjusted life years (QALY) metrics by federal agencies, Medicare Advantage plans and Medicaid managed care organizations. Some patient groups celebrated the passage. Experts have worried that "similar measures" language could stifle all comparative effectiveness analysis.

On public health, Medicaid and Medicaid managed care, and profit seeking in healthcare.

New acne guidelines from the American Academy of Dermatology recommend Winlevi (clascoterone), a topical treatment, and Seysara (sarecycline), a narrow-spectrum tetracycline, but qualify the recommendation as conditional because of concerns that the high cost may affect equitable access to treatment,

U.S. drug distances were far higher, even when rebates were factored in. The exception is unbranded generics for which prices in the U.S. are lower.

The report on drug spending touches on the rise of the GLP-1s. hows that As of January, semaglutide was the 5th ranked drug when it came to drug expenditures among Vizient pharmacy partners.

A review of published research identified only five studies. They showed that telemedicine, particularly for follow-up care, was as effective as in-person care in many respects

Data from 17 longitudinal studies of adults with HIV treated with antiretroviral therapy how that proportion of deaths caused by AIDS has fallen from nearly 50% to 16% and that all-cause mortality has been sliced in half.

Gilead's share price fell 10% today after it announced that Trodelvy, an antibody-drug conjugate, failed to meet its overall survival end point in a trial testing it as treatment for metatstatic non-small cell lung cancer.

Experts from Harvard, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins debate the wisdom of cost sharing in today's JAMA Internal Medicine.

A research team led by University of California, San Francisco, found flaws in how the large language model assessed prevalence and made differential diagnoses.

The FDA approved Dermavant Science's Vtama (tapinarof cream) last year as a treatment for plaque psoriasis. Sales have been disappointing, according to press reports. Will Vtama, which has a different mechanism of action than the current batch of topical medications for atopic dermatitis, fare better in the atopic dermatitis market?

The outlook for leukemia patients improved after Gleevec (imatinib) was approved in 2001 as a treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia. The American Cancer Society published its annual cancer statistics report today that projects 62,770 new cases of leukemia will be diagnosed this year and 23,670 deaths from the disease will occur.

The proportion of cancer patients who are 50-64 is increasing while the proportion of those 65 and older is shrinking, according to American Cancer Society researchers.

Overall cancer mortality in the U.S. continues to decline but there are some worrying trends in incidence and wide racial disparities.

States can use federal money that would otherwise support ACA marketplace premium tax credits to set up programs that offer health insurance to low-income people whose incomes are too high to make them eligible for Medicaid.

Acceptance is greater in oncology than in other specialties.

Total healthcare spending grew by 4.1% in 2022 and healthcare spending accounted for 17.3% of GDP, which is in the range of the spending numbers prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services actuarties. The proportion of Americans with health insurance reached 92% in 2022, an all-time high.

A preparation designed to restore the gut microbiota showed positive results on 14 long COVID symptoms according to results reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

A California retinal specialist argues in a JAMA Ophthalmology viewpoint article that an independent panel of retinal specialists and statisticians should assess the data from clinical trials of Syfovre (pegcetacoplan) because of the lack of a complete FDA scientific analysis of the drug and of peer-reviewed publication.

Angela Branche, M.D., an infectious disease specialist at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, says the gaps are in a precise understanding of who is at risk for serious illness from respiratory syncytial virus and therefore who should get vaccinated.

New infections are decreasing, but U.S. statistics reveal some significant disparities.

U.S. and United Nations health officials have set ambitious 2030 goals for ending HIV and AIDS. It looks like those efforts will fall short unless there is a burst of progress in the next few years.

Paying in installments with adjustments according to how well a gene therapy works is one way payers are coping with therapies with list prices in millions of dollars.

By identifying patients with glaucoma who are socially vulnerable, clinicians might intervene sooner and prevent the worsening of visual impairment, he said.

The corresponding author of a study published in Health Affairs of the research supporting 20 FDA-authorized prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) sees some positives but also an overall lack of rigor and the need for at least one high-quality clinical trial for each PDT.

Prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) have great potential for treating a wide range of conditions, so studying the quality of the evidence supporting their efficacy and safety is important, says the corresponding author of a study on PDTS published in this month's Health Affairs.

There were some positive findings. But of the 20 FDA-authorized prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) identified by researchers, only two met all the criteria for high-quality research. The results were published in Health Affairs.

Ejection fraction is a key factor in how clinicians diagnose, classify and treat heart failure. But you might not know it if you depended solely on ICD-10 codes.