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**The Latest Research, Commentary, and News from Health Affairs**

**Thursday, October 22, 2020**

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TODAY ON THE BLOG

**COVID-19 has upended life for everyone, and has had a profound impact
on those who provide and receive health care.**
While health care providers from various disciplines united in caring
for patients with COVID-19, they learned that the care of these patients
was also incredibly lonely and traumatic. Never has it been more
important to consider the well-being of providers

to help them process trauma, prevent burnout, and provide the best
possible care for patients during this challenging time. Provider
"heroism" has been a hallmark of the COVID-19 response
,
but is it a sustainable solution for ensuring that patients get the care
they need in a pandemic?

For patients with conditions other than COVID-19, the rapid shift to
telemedicine, and the delay of care deemed "non-essential" in light of
the virus caused its own problems, including dangerous diagnostic delays

and untreated chronic conditions
.

**Writing on Health Affairs Blog today, patients and providers present
first-person accounts that highlight policy issues raised by the
COVID-19 pandemic and response.**
And don't forget: for longer-form personal essays about health care,
check out our long-running Narrative Matters

series in the journal.

IN THE JOURNAL

CHILDREN'S HEALTH

Trends In Orphan Drug Spending And Out-Of-Pocket Spending Among US
Children, 2013-18

By Kao-Ping Chua and Rena M. Conti

In this national study of privately insured children, mean annual
out-of-pocket spending for orphan drugs increased from $486 in 2013 to
$866 in 2018 (78.2 percent). Findings demonstrate that pediatric orphan
drug spending is increasingly burdening payers and families and suggest
that payers should better protect families against the prices of orphan
drugs by improving benefit design. Read More >>

Pediatric Drug Policies Supporting Safe And Effective Use Of
Therapeutics In Children: A Systematic Analysis

By Mary Carmack, Thomas Hwang, and Florence T. Bourgeois

Under the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act of 2002 and the
Pediatric Research Equity Act of 2003, the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) can request pediatric studies for new drug and biologic
indications. Concerns have been raised that delays and noncompliance
with study requests contribute to high rates of off-label and
potentially unsafe or ineffective medication use in children. Mary
Carmack and coauthors used publicly available FDA documents to analyze
all indications for new drugs and biologics approved by the FDA from
2002 through 2018. Read More >>

Read the October 2020 Table of Contents
.

Subscribe to Health Affairs for full journal access.

**A CLOSER LOOK**-Pharmacy Benefit Managers

Many point to pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) as a cause of high drug
prices. The role of PBMs is to lower prices by aggregating health plan
customers into large networks for discount negotiation. Reread Michael
Carrier's six-step solution to ensure that PBMs fulfill this role.

****

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About Health Affairs

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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.

Copyright © Project HOPE: The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

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