The Healthy Muse (hospitalogy)

Healthy Muse Healthcare News.

HHS expands the public health emergency period

In a tweet from Alex Azar, HHS decided to expand the public health emergency period another 90 days.

• What’s that mean? Certain short-term emergency rules that went into effect, like expanded telehealth access, medical licensures across state lines, an extra 20% reimbursement tacked onto hospital COVID payments, etc. will remain for another 90 days..

Walmart expands health centers into more states as primary care continues transforming.

Walmart’s health centers must be doing QUITE well. The retail giant announced its intentions to expand into Florida and Illinois next year.

• I would expect the health centers to deploy nationwide before too long as Walmart tries to provide transparent primary care services at “everyday low prices” amiright?

The announcement is just the latest in one of the more interesting fields in healthcare right now – primary care. Just take a look at the new entrants recently:

• Walgreens – VillageMD partnership;
• CVS HealthHUBS (1,500+ expected)
• Amazon’s primary care pilot
• Telemedicine wave (more like a tsunami right now)
• AND all of the new direct-to-consumer primary care startups.

Healthcare Executive Orders x3.

President Trump signed three health care executive orders on Friday.

The details:

• First Order: Allow drug importation from Canada
• Second Order: Eliminate rebates that pharmacy benefit managers (think CVS) get from drugmakers but DON’T pass on to patients
• Third Order: Provide insulin and EpiPens for free through the 340B program
• Execute Order 66: Implement an International Pricing Index for Medicare

Remember these policies are executive orders and carry much less weight than Congressional acts.

Things to read:

• If you want a more comprehensive summary of the executive order effects, read this.
• The PBM industry is pretty complex. Here’s a good writeup from Axios on what these so-called middlemen do.

Why these executive orders now? Trump wants to enact something on healthcare prior to November – according to recent polls, voters seem to trust Democrats more on healthcare than they do Republicans. AKA, Trump seems weak on healthcare.

• Even MORE interesting is that a few of these policies – particularly the international pricing index – is more broadly seen as a Democratic proposal. 

Coronavirus Updates

• HHS unveiled its new public coronavirus data dashboard this week. You can see it here.
• This week, the CDC issued guidelines calling for schools to reopen. As you can imagine, this was a controversial report.
• Big question: vaccines produce immune responses in patients, but HOW BIG of an immune response is needed to counteract the virus?
• Pfizer received a $2 billion advance contract from the U.S. to produce 100 million doses of the vaccine. Americans would then receive that vaccine for free. The contract implies a vaccine value of about $20 per dosage.
• Moderna’s late-stage vaccine study – with 30,000 participants – began today
• A recent CDC report indicated that the true number of U.S. coronavirus infections could be between five to 20 times larger than reported.

Quick Hits

Biz Hits

• Walgreens’ CEO Stefano Pessina is stepping down. Walgreens has been on the struggle bus performance-wise lately.
• HCA Healthcare posted its Q2 earnings last week, beating estimates by a wide margin with over $1 billion in net income. While patient volumes were down, the hospital operator weathered the quarter by receiving $590 million in relief funding from the CARES Act.
• Other hospitals may not fare so well – half of U.S. hospitals are expected to have negative operating margins in 2020.
• McKinsey thinks that a wave of physician consolidation may be coming as independent practices struggle.
• Good Rx just expanded its telehealth service nationwide. Patients can now access HeyDoctor for routine doctor visits, prescription refills, and mail delivery. Notably, patients can use the platform regardless of insurance status.
• The demand for digital pharmacies is skyrocketing.

Policy Hits

• A recent study estimates that with every five to ten percent increase in unemployment, the number of people with commercial insurance drops three to five percent.
• This week, Joe Biden released a $775 billion healthcare plan to boost the at-home healthcare economy.
• The Trump admin is providing $5 billion in relief funding to struggling nursing homes.

Other Hits

• Read about the millennials aiming to transform the healthcare industry during COVID.
• Medicare is running out of money.
• Hims is eyeing a deal to go public and expands its remote mental health services

Thought-Provoking Editorials

• The Commonwealth Fund highlights the crises and opportunities stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The Health Care Blog wants nurse practitioners to keep their expanded practice licenses.
• Telemedicine revolution, deferred (Politico)

Healthy Muse Top Picks

• Keep an eye on Sidecar Health. The startup is focused on providing patients with price transparency and cash-pay rates for providers.
• The run for telehealth vendors has begun.

Thanks for reading.

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