The Big Stuff.
This week’s top healthcare news.
‘Rona Reads.
Things you need to know: Updated U.S. infection rates by county (click here). Global infection rates (click here). Johns Hopkins critical trends to understand (click here)
- How the coronavirus mutates and spreads. (NY Times)
- The FDA is cracking down on fraudulent antibody testing (scumbags…) – (WSJ)
- Medical diagnostic testing and cancer screenings have plummeted during the pandemic – leading many worried about future health outcomes
- Apple and Google released a first look at the COVID-19 digital tracing API. Take a closer look at how it works here.
Healthy Muse Visuals
- Understanding Joe Biden’s healthcare plan
- A coronavirus timeline: the biggest stories to know.
How’s the vaccine coming along?
Fun fact: the government has renamed the vaccine development project to ‘Operation Warp Speed.‘
- Their goal is to have 300 million vaccine dosages ready by January by combining both private (biotech companies) and public resources (military and government agencies).
There are a lot of promising vaccines out there (just look at Stat’s vaccine tracker), which bodes well for the future of civilization.
- Cool stat: there are at LEAST 70 different vaccines in development, according to the WHO.
More CARES Act distributions, and everyone want more money.
This week, HHS started round 2 of CARES Act distributions, allocating about $10 billion to pandemic ‘hot spots’ and $10 billion to rural healthcare providers.
Another $20 billion will be given based on each provider’s proportion of total net patient revenue in 2018.
- With round 2, total emergency distributions to healthcare providers total about $70 billion – meaning there’s around $105 billion left in the pie.
- Read more: where’s all that money going?
“That’s not enough.”
Providers are saying the $175 billion in emergency healthcare funding is not enough, given the steep prices for PPE and lost revenues.
This week, the American Hospital Association (AHA) and American Nurse Association (ANA) asked Congress for several new relief programs, the biggest of which is changing the Medicare Accelerated Payments (what’s this?) program into a forgivable loan.
- Remember that providers could request ‘advances’ from Medicare to get extra cash, but as of right now, those loans need to be repaid.
Read more about this from ModernHealthcare (soft paywall).
“We need more help, too.” – employers and health insurers.
Providers aren’t the only ones that want more relief.
- As a part of the next stimulus package, employers and insurers are asking for subsidies on health insurance premiums for both commercial and ACA plans, as well as funding to allow recently unemployed people to retain their employer-sponsored health plan.
Testing, testing, testing…antibodies.
A crucial part of re-opening the economy stems from knowing where the virus is spreading and who needs to be more cautious. The best way to know that information is through testing.
- This week, Quest, Labcorp, and other laboratory testing providers began rolling out direct-to-consumer antibody tests, which tell you whether or not you’ve had the ‘Rona.
In addition, CVS is continuing its swab-testing rollout to 1,000 locations. Walgreens has drive-thru testing in 49 states.
- And Rite Aid is expanding its testing in a partnership with Verily, a healthcare startup backed by Google.
While current testing capacity sits at an estimated 2 million tests per week, public-health doctors are estimating that total testing must be around 4 million per week in order to appropriately capture all of the coronavirus cases and prevent further spread.
Remdesivir: the (not really) silver bullet (sorta):
Positive results emerged from Gilead’s antiviral medication Remdesivir. The drug showed some promise in treating the ‘Rona.
- From an international clinical trial, those patients treated with the drug improved 31% faster than those who did not receive the drug. Fauci called this result ‘Quite good news.‘
With the news, the FDA approved Remdesivir for emergency use.
- Gilead is donating its entire supply as a gesture of goodwill and says that over 50,000 treatments are ready to ship as soon as this week.
UnitedHealth buys behavioral health platform AbleTo for $470 million
- Payors are getting busy with acquisitions in Q2. UnitedHealth’s Optum is in advanced talks to acquire remote mental health provider AbleTo for about $470 million
Molina buys Magellan Complete Care for $820 million.
- In other news, Molina announced its intention to acquire Magellan’s Medicaid and Medicare business for about $820 million in cash.
Read more about the deal here.
- Other payor news: payors like Anthem and Molina are bracing for some huge growth in Medicaid plans amid record unemployment.
Quick Hits
Biz Hits
- U.S. health insurers have benefitted majorly from the suspension of elective procedures. All major public health insurance companies have reiterated earnings guidance despite COVID-19.
- A skilled nursing giant’s perspective on COVID-19 and the need to invest in senior care.
- SmileDirectClub won a huge patent case this week over its SmileShop retail concept. It’s the first good news in a while for the direct-to-consumer dental co.
- Community Health continues its hospital selling spree and is pretty close to finishing its hospital divestitures.
- The plunge in health-care spending was a big reason why the US economy sank in the first quarter
- Here’s a super interesting partnership: Epic is partnering with Twilio to launch a new telehealth service. I’ll be monitoring this one.
State Hits
- Missouri is closing in on Medicaid expansion. I wonder if the current healthcare environment sped that decision up – and whether it’ll cause other states to do the same.
- Florida allegedly ordered coroners to stop releasing coronavirus death data.
- Oklahoma just re-filed opioid lawsuits against the three main drug distributors.
Other Hits
- The Dr. Fauci of the 1918 Spanish Flu. (Forbes)
- They lived in a factory for 28 days to make millions of pounds of raw PPE materials to help fight coronavirus. (WaPo)
- Will COVID change primary care forever? Telemedicine and primary care in the limelight. (THCB)
- How Kaiser Permanente Owned TikTok With Its #OwnTheCurve Covid-19 Campaign
- The telehealth genie is out of the bottle, according to CMS head Seema Verma – it’s here to stay.
Thought-Provoking Editorials
- Covid-19 and suicide: an uncertain connection. (Stat)
- Pseudoscience and COVID-19 — we’ve had enough already. (Nature)
- What the coronavirus crisis reveals about American medicine. (New Yorker)
- The cruel COVID ‘new normal.’ (WSJ)
- Primary care is being devastated by Covid-19. It must be saved. (Stat)
Thanks for reading. I’m out. @B_Madden4
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