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Apellis Drug Becomes First Approved Therapy for Vision-Loss Disorder Geographic Atrophy

February 18, 2023April 11, 2023MedCity News

Geographic atrophy, an eye disorder that starts as a loss of central vision and progressively worsens to total blindness, now has its first treatment. The FDA on Friday approved an Apellis Pharmaceuticals drug that slows the progression of this disease, which affects more than 1 million people in the U.S.
Approval of the Apellis drug, pegcetacoplan, covers all patients with geographic atrophy, a broad label that reflects the representative patient population tested in pivotal studies, Chief Medical Officer Caroline Baumal said during a Friday evening conference call. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company plans to launch the drug in March, marketing the product under…

PBMs Come Under Fire During Senate Hearing

February 18, 2023April 11, 2023MedCity News

Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) took a hit from lawmakers during a Thursday hearing held by the Senate Commerce Committee, with some questioning why the drug middlemen are even necessary.
“The way I see the situation on PBMs, I don’t know why the hell they even exist,” said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana. “They were set up with all the right reasons … But what I see them doing in my state, I don’t think the consumer gets much benefit and they’re shutting down small businesses on main street right and left and those are called our local neighborhood pharmacies.” The hearing discussed how…

Decline of Telehealth During the Pandemic and After

February 18, 2023April 11, 2023MedCity News

The pandemic has forced healthcare organizations to rely heavily on telehealth services. In 2020, virtual visits accounted for more than a quarter of all outpatient visits in the U.S., and they’ve been steadily increasing since then. But there is a flip side to this trend. Recent data shows that telehealth is declining in healthcare, which could create a burden for both healthcare systems and patients. Let’s take a look at why this is happening and what can be done about it.
Reasons behind the decline There are several factors driving the decline in telehealth utilization in healthcare settings. One reason is cost…

Fatty Liver Disease in Children: Prevalence, Evaluation, & Essential Tools

February 17, 2023April 11, 2023eHealth Radio Network

Dr. Alisha Mavis, a Pediatric Hepatologist at Duke University where she cares for pediatric patients with liver disease joins eHealth Radio and the Children’s Health & Health News Channels.
Listen to interview with host Eric Michaels and guest Dr. Alisha Mavis discuss the following:
What is the prevalence of fatty liver disease in children, and who should we be screening?
When screening a child for fatty liver disease, what are some of the tools used to evaluate for the disease, and how is the diagnosis of pediatric fatty liver disease made?
What is the natural history of pediatric liver disease, and how does this…

Chiesi Wins FDA Approval for First Drug to Treat Ultra-Rare Enzyme Deficiency

February 17, 2023April 11, 2023MedCity News

A Chiesi Farmaceutici drug for a rare enzyme deficiency is now approved by the FDA, making it the first U.S. treatment for a disorder that leads to a range of cognitive and muscle problems.
The regulatory decision announced late Thursday covers the treatment of children and adults who have alpha-mannosidosis (AM), a disease caused by a genetic mutation that leads to defective or inactive forms of an enzyme called alpha-D-mannosidase. Chiesi’s drug, velmanase alfa, is an engineered version of that enzyme. The privately held Italian company will market its new FDA-approved drug as Lamzede, the same name for the product in Europe,…

Health benefits platform Collective Health announces layoffs

February 17, 2023April 11, 2023MobiHealthNews

Collective Health, a health benefits management platform, has laid off 54 employees as it arranges its workforce to better align with customer needs. The company’s CEO, Ali Diab, announced the layoffs on LinkedIn, saying the employees were being let go due to a “workforce reduction,” while urging companies that may encounter those employees during the hiring process to provide them with “strong consideration.”
Collective Health acts as a third-party health benefits administrator, bringing companies’ various benefits into one platform to let employers manage their offerings while assisting employees with navigating their healthcare.
“We can confirm that as part of a restructuring of our workforce,…

Retrieving Billions in Overpayments by CMS

February 17, 2023April 11, 2023Healthcare IT Today

Amid swirling accusations that Medicare Advantage Organizations (MAOs) are overbilling the U.S. government and calls for better oversight, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced in early February that it would investigate overbilling by those plans. They expect to recoup 4.7 billion dollars through this program.
This article focuses on the relatively young technologies that enable CMS to uncover overbillings, whether they be errors or fraud. The article is based on an interview with Kel Pults, chief clinical officer and vice president of MediQuant. A future article will explain how Medicare Advantage plans are trying to improving data collection and reporting,…

Community Health Systems reports GoAnywhere hacked

February 17, 2023April 11, 2023Healthcare IT news

Community Health Systems filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it was notified by a third-party vendor for secure file transfer of an incident that resulted in unauthorized disclosure of its patient data.WHY IT MATTERS
The GoAnywhere managed file transfer platform first warned about a zero-day remote code injection exploit on February 1, according to the technical bulletin posted by noted security researcher Brian Krebs on Infosec.exchange.
“The attack vector of this exploit requires access to the administrative console of the application, which in most cases is accessible only from within a private company network, through [virtual private network] or by allow-listed IP…

HIMSSCast: Epic leaders on data-driven clinical trial innovation

February 17, 2023April 11, 2023Healthcare IT news

The challenges of designing effective clinical trials, finding the right people to participate in them and building trial cohorts that are representative of the population at large, have been well-documented.With its recent Life Sciences initiative, Epic has set its sights on data-driven insights to improve the development of new therapeutics and interventions. That includes improving all parts of the clinical trial process – from how physicians educate their patients about potential cohorts, matching and connecting patients with promising research and helping make sure those studies are optimally beneficial for as many people as possible. Epic is already helping its provider customers…

What the metaverse and virtual reality can contribute to healthcare

February 17, 2023April 11, 2023Healthcare IT news

The so-called metaverse and virtual reality are up-and-coming technologies that could offer healthcare quite a bit.Medical practitioners can test out the effectiveness of new surgical methods in the metaverse before attempting on real patients. And as an extension of telehealth, medical professionals can use virtual reality to access patients and examine them virtually.
What exactly is the metaverse? How does virtual reality work? What can they contribute to healthcare? And where will these technologies offer innovations in the years to come?
To get answers to these questions, we sat down with Pari Natarajan, CEO of Zinnov, a global management and consulting firm focusing…

Diverging trajectories of trust in healthcare and on-line information seeking: what’s next with LLMs

Weekly Roundup – January 31, 2026

Embedding clinical intelligence to help close care gaps

Impact of Mobilization Facilitated by Wearable Device Enhanced Patient Monitoring/Electrophysiology Pod–Based Feedback on Postoperative Complications Following Colorectal Cancer Surgery: Randomized Controlled Trial

Tag: News

Apellis Drug Becomes First Approved Therapy for Vision-Loss Disorder Geographic Atrophy

PBMs Come Under Fire During Senate Hearing

Decline of Telehealth During the Pandemic and After

Fatty Liver Disease in Children: Prevalence, Evaluation, & Essential Tools

Chiesi Wins FDA Approval for First Drug to Treat Ultra-Rare Enzyme Deficiency

Health benefits platform Collective Health announces layoffs

Retrieving Billions in Overpayments by CMS

HIMSSCast: Epic leaders on data-driven clinical trial innovation

What the metaverse and virtual reality can contribute to healthcare

Diverging trajectories of trust in healthcare and on-line information seeking: what’s next with LLMs

What impact has healow had on your organization and the patients’ experience?

Weekly Roundup – January 31, 2026

Embedding clinical intelligence to help close care gaps

Impact of Mobilization Facilitated by Wearable Device Enhanced Patient Monitoring/Electrophysiology Pod–Based Feedback on Postoperative Complications Following Colorectal Cancer Surgery: Randomized Controlled Trial

Meditech founder Neil Pappalardo dies at 83

The Landscape of Mobile Apps for Healthy Eating: Case Study for a Systematic Review and Quality Assessment

Decagon raises $250M for AI agents, triples valuation to $4.5B

Successful AI adoption requires meaningful change management

The Safe AI in Medicaid Alliance can help providers hone their tactics

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