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A Weekly Health Policy Round Up From Health Affairs
June 21, 2020
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FAST TRACK AHEAD OF PRINT
Community Use Of Face Masks And COVID-19: Evidence From A Natural Experiment Of State Mandates In The US
By Wei Lyu and George L. Wehby
Wei Lyu and George Wehby estimate the effect of face cover mandates on the county-level COVID-19 growth rate by evaluating public data sets and reviewing all state orders issued between April 1 and May 21, 2020. According to the authors, mandating public use of face masks is associated with a reduction in the COVID-19 daily growth rate,
with the effect increasing over time and reaching 2.0 percentage points twenty-one days after the issuance of an order. The authors also estimate that the face mask mandates had prevented as many as 230,000–450,000 US COVID-19 cases by May 22. Read More >>
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Treatment Of Opioid Use Disorder Among Commercially Insured US Adults, 2008–17
By Karen Shen, Eric
Barrette, and Leemore S. Dafny
There is abundant literature on efforts to reduce opioid prescriptions and misuse, but comparatively little on the treatment provided to people with opioid use disorder (OUD). Using claims data representing 12–15 million nonelderly adults covered through commercial group insurance during the period 2008–17, Karen Shen and coauthors explored rates of OUD diagnoses, treatment patterns, and spending. Read More >>
PHARMACEUTICALS & MEDICAL TECHNOLOGYEstimating The Cost Of Delayed Generic Drug Entry To Medicaid
By Chintan V. Dave, Michael S. Sinha, Reed F. Beall, and Aaron S. Kesselheim
Chintan Dave and coauthors find that of sixty-nine brand-name drugs that were
expected to lose market exclusivity in the period 2010–16, generic entry was delayed by at least one calendar quarter for thirty-one, usually at least in part because of patent litigation. Total estimated costs to the Medicaid program over this period due to delays were in excess of $700 million. Read More >>
The Impact Of Academic Medical Center Policies Restricting Direct-To-Physician Marketing On Opioid Prescribing
By Matthew D. Eisenberg, Elizabeth M. Stone, Harlan Pittell, and Emma E. McGinty
Examining a period when academic medical centers increasingly adopted restrictions on marketing practices related to opioids, Matthew Eisenberg and coauthors find “evidence that the presence of restrictions—specifically, bans on sales representatives and disclosure requirements—were associated with reduced volume of opioid prescribing.”
Read More >>
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THIS WEEK ON THE BLOGCOVID-19
In The COVID-19 Era, And Beyond, Symptom Monitoring Should Be A Universal Health Care Function
By Robert S. Rudin, Mark W. Friedberg, and Daniel A. Solomon
As countries, states, and cities reopen, millions of
people are projected to contract COVID-19, threatening to overwhelm inpatient and aftercare capacity. Central to a successful response by national health care systems, and to preparing for inevitable future disease outbreaks, is symptom assessment. Read More >>A Systematic Approach To Mitigate The Spread Of COVID-19 In Immigration Detention Facilities
By Parsa Erfani, Caroline Lee, Nishant Uppal, and Katherine Peeler (6/17/20)
The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing the dangerous conditions under which detained immigrants are being held. The release of detainees from facilities is of the highest priority. However, mass testing of detainees, improving access to health care, and establishing an ombudsman office to inspect facilities and respond to misconduct are all necessary while litigation is pending. Read More >>
How States Are Facilitating Medicaid Enrollment During COVID-19—And How They
Can Do Even More
By Rebecca Landucci, Jennifer E. Moore, Clare C. Brown, Caroline E. Adams, Nicole Truhe, and Mark Larson (6/17/20)
As the pandemic continues to impact rates of unemployment, many will rely on Medicaid as a critical source of health coverage and access to care. Given the large number of potential applicants, states have an opportunity to adopt strategies to make the application and enrollment processes easier and more efficient for potential applicants. Read More
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COVID-19 Leads To 50 Percent Fewer ED Encounters At Major Hospitals In New Orleans
By Rebekah E. Gee, Scott Mackey, Pete Croughan, and Will Boles (6/17/20)
Clinicians in many places (including New Orleans) are seeing an alarming trend right now—fewer visits to the emergency department. The need to mobilize means for widespread awareness of both COVID-19 and the effects of delayed care is urgent. Read More >>
Public Health Cannot Go It Alone On COVID-19
By Amy Killelea (6/16/20)
The COVID-19 pandemic requires an unprecedented response that leverages all of the tools at our disposal. Public health and private insurance must work in tandem to best target resources across health care and public health settings. Read More
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Targeted Coronavirus Testing Is Essential For Health Equity
By Ryan Huerto, Susan Goold, and Duane Newton (6/15/20)
Minoritized and low-income populations are at greater risk of COVID-19 infection and mortality. Prioritizing testing in these and other marginalized communities could enable those at higher risk for severe illness and, typically, worse access to care, to be more safely monitored and promptly treated. Read More >>
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FOLLOWING THE ACA EEOC Will Advance New Wellness Regulations
By Katie Keith (6/17/20)
In a public meeting on June 11, 2020, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted, by 2-1, to advance a new notice of proposed rulemaking on wellness programs. The EEOC intends to move forward with the proposed rule after parts of its last regulation were invalidated in court and even as the value of wellness programs has been refuted in several recent studies. This post summarizes the status of regulations for wellness programs, the comments made during the public meeting, and what to expect next.
Read More >>
Supreme Court Finds LGBT People Are Protected From Employment Discrimination: Implications For The ACA
By Katie Keith (6/16/20)
While the Supreme Court’s
ruling has many important consequences, this post focuses on implications for a recent rule on Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act that was issued only three days prior. Overall, the decision calls major parts of the Office for Civil Rights’ final rule into question. Read More >>
CONSIDERING HEALTH SPENDINGVA And ICER At Three Years: Critics' Concerns Answered
By Peter A. Glassman, Steven D. Pearson, Jennifer Zacher, David Rind, and Michael A. Valentino (6/15/20)
In June 2017 the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) entered a relationship with the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review in order to enhance the VA's internal evidence review processes. Given the initial concerns that were raised when this
collaboration was first announced, we provide an update on the successes and challenges of this partnership.
Read More >>
This post appears in the series Considering Health Spending.
COSTS & SPENDING
A Scalpel Instead Of A Sledgehammer: The Potential Of Value-Based Deductible Exemptions In High-Deductible Health Plans
By Douglas Barthold and Anirban Basu
Value-based
high-deductible health plans would ensure access to high-value services by exempting their costs from deductibles, while also providing consumers with transparency on the full costs of low-value services and disincentivizing their use. Read More >>
CMS’s Proposed
Rule On Value-Based Purchasing For Prescription Drugs: New Tools For Negotiating Prices For The Next Generation Of Therapies
By Seema Verma (6/17/20)
A proposed rule released today by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services aims to empower commercial plans to negotiate value-based purchasing arrangements for prescription drugs while extending these discounts to Medicaid programs. The proposed rule is designed to ensure that the Medicaid Best Price accurately captures both the prices that are paid in new types of payment models and the circumstances in which those prices are paid. Read More >>
Make Transparent Health Care Prices A Price Of Any Future Aid To The Health Care Industry
By Brian Blase (6/16/20)
It’s time for Congress to stop focusing its efforts on supporting the wealthy health care and health insurance industries, and it’s time for these industries to help American families and businesses
and drop their fight against health care price transparency. This starts by equipping Americans—both families and employers—with tools to be better purchasers of health care. Read More >>
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About Health Affairs
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewed journal at the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
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