HEOR News

Interpreting the First Round of Maximum Fair Prices Negotiated By Medicare for Drugs (Health Affairs)

A study aimed to estimate how Medicare’s 2023 spending on certain drugs at the negotiated “maximum fair price” levels would compare to the actual net spending on these drugs in Part D in 2023. The researchers found that due to the context-dependent nature of the negotiation process under current guidance, estimates of the net financial impact of the first round of negotiations are unlikely to be generalizable to future rounds of the negotiation process. In other words, the researchers concluded that the financial effects of the initial drug price negotiations may not be representative of the impacts in subsequent negotiation rounds, as the process is heavily dependent on the specific context and circumstances involved.
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Early Findings From the NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission Program: A Prospective Evaluation of Real-World Implementation (The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology)

The National Health Service’s Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission program is a 12-month behavioral intervention to support weight loss involving an initial 3-month period of total diet replacement. In evaluating the program results between September 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022, researchers found that remission of type 2 diabetes is possible outside of research settings through at-scale service delivery, but the rate of remission achieved is lower and the ascertainment of data is more limited with implementation in the real world than in randomized controlled trial settings.
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Tribal Health Officials ‘Blinded’ by Lack of Data
(KFF Health News)

Epidemiologists serving Native American communities, which have some of the nation’s most profound health inequities, say they’re hobbled by state and federal agencies restricting their access to important data.
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Consumer Out-of-Pocket Drug Prices Grew Faster Than Prices Faced by Insurers After Accounting for Rebates, 2007–2020 (Health Affairs)

Looking at combined claims data on branded retail prescription drugs with estimates on rebates to provide new price index measures based on pharmacy prices, negotiated prices (after rebates), and out-of-pocket prices for the commercially insured population during 2007–2020, researchers found that although retail pharmacy prices increased 9.1% annually, negotiated prices grew by a mere 4.3%, which they say highlights the importance of rebates in price measurement.
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Embedded Bias: How Race Became Ubiquitous in Medical Decision-Making Tools (STAT)

In the 1990s, the National Institutes of Health began mandating the collection and reporting of racial data in its funded research. This marked a pivotal shift, exposing stark racial disparities in health outcomes through quantifiable data. However, this quantification has also enabled a new generation of researchers to develop algorithms that improperly use race as a health risk factor. These algorithmic misuses can perpetuate and even exacerbate the very racial divides the data collection was intended to address, highlighting the complex and potentially problematic implications of how demographic data are leveraged in the pursuit of medical advancements.
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Perceptions of Multi-Cancer Early Detection Tests Among Communities Facing Barriers to Healthcare (Health Affairs Scholar)

Looking at the use of blood-based multi-cancer early detection tests (MCEDs), researchers found barriers and facilitators to their adoption across individual, interpersonal, the healthcare system, and societal levels, including adverse psychological impacts, positive perceptions of MCEDs, information and knowledge about cancer screening, the quality of the patient–provider relationship, a lack of healthcare system trustworthiness, logistical accessibility, patient supports, and financial accessibility.
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Forecasting the Impact of Means Restriction on the Suicide Mortality Rate in the Region of the Americas: An Ecological Modeling Study (The Lancet Regional Health-Americas)

In the light of the suicide mortality rate increasing in Region of the Americas, despite decreasing in all other World Health Organization (WHO) regions, researchers sought to estimate the impact of implementing national-level means restriction policies (ie, firearm and pesticide restrictions) on this rate and found national-level restriction policies in areas where at least 40% of suicides could be linked to these means could aid the Region of the Americas in achieving the WHO target of a one-third reduction in the suicide mortality rate by 2030.
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Cost-Effectiveness and Health Impact of Screening and Treatment of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Infection Among Formerly Incarcerated Individuals in Brazil: A Markov Modeling Study (The Lancet Global Health)

In investigating the potential health impact and cost-effectiveness of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection screening and tuberculosis preventive treatment for individuals who were formerly incarcerated in Brazil, researchers found that compared with no intervention, an intervention incorporating tuberculin skin testing and treatment with 3 months of isoniazid and rifapentine would avert 31 (95% uncertainty interval 14–56) lifetime tuberculosis cases and 4.1 (1.4–5.8) lifetime tuberculosis deaths per 1000 individuals and cost $242 per disability-adjusted life-years averted.
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Changes in Cannabis Involvement in Emergency Department Visits for Anxiety Disorders After Cannabis Legalization: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study (The Lancet Regional Health-Americas)

In examining changes in emergency department (ED) visits for anxiety disorders with cannabis involvement in Ontario, over a period that involved medical and nonmedical cannabis legalization, researchers found large relative increases in anxiety disorder ED visits with cannabis involvement, which may reflect increasing anxiety disorder problems from cannabis use, increasing self-medication of anxiety disorders with cannabis use, or both.
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SARS-CoV-2 Infections Before, During, and After the Omicron Wave: A 2-Year Indian Community Cohort Study (The Lancet Regional Health-Southeast Asia)

Researchers say integrated reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and serology revealed significant SARS-CoV-2 infection frequency, highlighting the prevalence of asymptomatic cases among previously infected or vaccinated individuals and underscoring the effectiveness of combining surveillance strategies when monitoring pandemic trends.
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