Tag: Daily

Digital as the Differentiator for Biopharma and Medtech

Digital as the Differentiator for Biopharma and Medtech

MedCity News

With the Inflation Reduction Act now on the books, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will begin negotiating drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry. That, combined with other headwinds such as increased competition from me-too drugs, and ever-present pricing pressure from payers, means that pharma players now more than ever need a new and powerful tool to differentiate their products. We believe the next decade of transformation is digital.
Learning from the auto industry Almost every industry has had to confront a fundamental existential question: What is our product? Consider the automotive industry, which once was largely about hardware…

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Elation Health Buys Medical Billing Company to Create All-in-One Tech Platform for Primary Care Providers

Elation Health Buys Medical Billing Company to Create All-in-One Tech Platform for Primary Care Providers

MedCity News

Elation Health — a San Francisco-based company that sells its electronic health record (EHR) and other technology solutions to primary care providers — on Thursday announced its  acquisition of medical billing firm Lightning MD.
The deal will help Elation become an all-in-one technology platform for primary care offices, CEO Kyna Fong said in a recent interview. Fong founded Elation with her brother in 2010. The siblings grew up in Canada, where their father was a primary care physician — and a passionate one. He was so passionate that he ended up moving his family to the U.S. because he couldn’t “practice the…

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How to Leverage Diagnostic Development to Guard Against RSV, Flu and Covid-19 [Sponsored]

How to Leverage Diagnostic Development to Guard Against RSV, Flu and Covid-19 [Sponsored]

MedCity News

For the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare professionals focused on understanding the Covid-19 virus, how best to guard against it, and developing tests to detect it. They also tracked, aggregated, and analyzed health data to assess and monitor the public health threat on a regional, state and country-wide level. In the longer term, vaccine development and distribution were used to slow the spread to avoid a collapse of the health system and to reduce the potency of the virus for the majority of people.
More recently, attention has shifted to the long perceived threat of viruses coming together with…

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Blood Biotech Grifols Cuts Deep in the U.S. to Find €400M in Savings

Blood Biotech Grifols Cuts Deep in the U.S. to Find €400M in Savings

MedCity News

Grifols, a company that turns blood plasma into therapies for immunological disorders and other conditions, is laying off about 2,000 U.S. workers as part of a corporate restructuring projected to yield up to €400 million in annual cost savings, the biotech announced Wednesday.
The layoffs represent about 8% of the Barcelona-based company’s global workforce, but they will happen mainly in its U.S. plasma operations. That’s notable because as a company that relies on plasma, the U.S. is vital to its business. The starting point for Grifols’s therapies is blood plasma. Key to its drug-making process is fractionation, in which the protein components…

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BCBS Tennessee Unveils Health Disparities in First Health Equity Report

BCBS Tennessee Unveils Health Disparities in First Health Equity Report

MedCity News

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee unveiled its first Health Equity Report Tuesday, which analyzed six topics of health disparities: behavioral health, cancer, child and adolescent care, chronic condition management, Covid-19 and maternal health.
The report serves as a way to understand the inequities that exist among its members to determine ways the payer can address the disparities, said Dr. Andrea Willis, chief medical officer of BCBS Tennessee. “We wanted to get a better picture of the health issues and barriers to care faced by our members and Tennesseans as a whole, so that we could more effectively partner with health care providers to…

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The Federal Trade Commission Accuses GoodRx Of Multiple Data Sharing Fails, Demands It Pay $1.5 Million Fine and Make Reforms

The Federal Trade Commission Accuses GoodRx Of Multiple Data Sharing Fails, Demands It Pay $1.5 Million Fine and Make Reforms

Healthcare IT Today

The Federal Trade Commission has cited telehealth and prescription drug discount provider GoodRx for sharing sensitive consumer health data with several advertising platforms, in violation of its own privacy promises to consumers.
The agency has filed a proposed order demanding that GoodRx pay $1.5 million in civil penalties for failing to let consumers know about unauthorized disclosures of its data to a list of advertiser platforms. including Facebook and Google.
The company, which is based in California, operates a digital health platform offering prescription drug discounts, telehealth visits and other health services. It captures a wide range of data from consumers who use…

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The Path Forward for Healthcare’s People Matching Problem

The Path Forward for Healthcare’s People Matching Problem

Healthcare IT Today

The following is a guest article by Rachel Podczervinski MS, RHIA, Vice President of Professional Services at Harris Data Integrity Solutions.
Efforts to identify the right path forward for healthcare’s patient matching problem are gaining a foothold as stakeholders from across the spectrum come together to remove obstacles and implement effective solutions. Most notably, in 2022, efforts by industry organizations like Patient ID Now led to the temporary removal of Section 510 from the U.S. House and Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies (Labor-HHS) appropriations bills. While it was ultimately reinserted in the final version, its initial removal…

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HHS Aims To Reduce Prescription Drug Costs Through 3 New Models

HHS Aims To Reduce Prescription Drug Costs Through 3 New Models

MedCity News

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) unveiled three new models Tuesday that will be tested by the CMS Innovation Center and aim to lower prescription drug costs. The models include access to $2 generic drugs.
The news is in response to President Joe Biden’s executive order issued in October, which directed HHS to find ways to lower prescription drug costs and improve access to drug therapies for those enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid health plans. The models are meant to build on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for…

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Heartpoint Global Hopes To Disrupt Congenital Pulmonary Hypertension Treatment With Minimally Invasive Device

Heartpoint Global Hopes To Disrupt Congenital Pulmonary Hypertension Treatment With Minimally Invasive Device

MedCity News

To correct high blood pressure of the pulmonary artery, which can arise from congenital defects of the heart, an artificial heart ucan cost upwards of $190,000. Heart disease accounted for about one in five deaths in 2020 in theUnited States.
Even minimally invasive pulmonary artery banding — a surgical technique that has been in use since Harry Truman was president — requires access to the chest cavity. A new treatment under development by HeartPoint Global seeks to provide a minimally invasive alternative to current treatments for pulmonary arterial hypertension associated with Congenital Heart Disease.A device delivered through the leg would cost only…

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