MHE January 2021

Eric Whitaker, M.D., credits influences in high school and medical school with his success. Now he wants to turn his new Medicare Advantage plan, Zing Health, into a training ground for Black and Latino health insurance executives — and has his sights set on unicorn status.

Last year a lull in provider mergers and acquisitions was followed by an uptick. Experts say the disruptive effect of COVID-19 may mean plenty of deals this year.

Some see the decline in healthcare utilization as an opportunity to eliminate ineffective, sometimes harmful healthcare.

Although virtual visits as a whole have dropped off since their peak last spring, visits for behavioral health issues are still going strong, a reflection, in part, of the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on the mental health of Americans.

Riding high because of the COVID-19 surge, telemedicine companies are going public and making expensive deals.

Managed Health Executive® editors Peter Wehrwein and Briana Contreras interviewed Kevin Ronneberg, M.D., for our “Meet the Board” podcast series. Ronneberg is vice president and associate medical director for health initiatives at HealthPartners, a nonprofit integrated healthcare delivery system headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota. He has been on the MHE editorial advisory board since 2015.

The prevalence of heart failure is increasing as the demographic profile of the American population gets older.

Attention is turning this year to heart failure with preserved injection fraction.

Eli Lilly and UnitedHealth Group announced early last month that they are teaming up to conduct a “pragmatic” study of Lilly’s bamlanivimab, a monoclonal antibody developed as a treatment for COVID-19.

Collecting high-quality data is critical to addressing healthcare equity issues, according to Marcella Nunez-Smith, M.D., M.H.S., whom President-elect Joe Biden has chosen to lead a new White House task force on the issue.

Telehealth holds the promise of increasing access to care. But research findings concerning direct-to-consumer (DTC) telehealth, reported in JAMA Network Open last month, suggest that it might not be as simple as that.

The industry is adjusting to the pandemic, but FDA approvals could dip this year. Several new drugs for atopic dermatitis may get the agency’s green light.

States are moving to curb copay accumulators as federal government pulls back from regulation.