Articles by Briana Contreras

Our guest on this month’s episode of the “What's on Your Mind” podcast is Margaret Murray, M.P.A., founding CEO of the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP) and a longtime member of Managed Healthcare Executive® editorial advisory board. Murray is an expert on Medicaid and healthcare policies that affect people with low incomes. In the interview with Managing Editor of MHE, Peter Wehrwein, she discusses ACAP’s growth and its legislative wins, Medicaid redetermination, “junk insurance,” and state Medicaid programs carving out pharmacy benefits.

Healthcare leaders are urging the public in a new public service announcement to make sure they are up-to-date on their COVID-19 vaccines, including the updated bivalent booster dose when eligible.

Founder and managing partner of Third Culture Capital (3CC), Julien Pham, expressed that funding for telehealth is on the decline and will only continue on this path. Pham explained why this is happening and shared alternative routes of care organizations can take to address disparities and improve access to care.

The MSK AI model will automatically identify and measure tendons of specific anatomical sites including the foot, ankle and knee using artificial intelligence with the Clarius L7 HD3 and Clarius L15 HD3 high-frequency ultrasound scanners.

It's been reported more often now that funding for telehealth has decreased and it will only continue to do so into the year. Funding has likely decreased because the video/virtual care medium has become a commodity, according to Summus CEO and Founder, Julian Flannery.

Virtual care has been a favored service among many healthcare consumers as its users have shared they want more out of it, according to a 2022 Virtual Care Survey Report by Summus.

As a dozen Humira Biosimilars are set to enter the market this year, it seems to be unlikely that they will drive down drug costs in the future.

Results from a recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) analysis shared that Medicare beneficiaries who use insulin would have saved $734 million in Part D and $27 million in Part B if these caps had been in effect in 2020

Researchers examined data from the 2019 and 2021 American Community Survey and found that, nationally, the uninsured rate declined from 11.1% to 10.5%, a change that represents more than 1.6 million people gaining coverage.

Authors of the study, which was published in Jama Network, found that patients with commercial insurance had total and OOP costs that varied by facility for common EGS conditions without any association with quality of care, even after adjusting for patient, insurance, and clinical factors.

Though, unvaccinated people are at much greater risk for severe outcomes than folks the same age who are caught up on boosters.

Medicaid officials of 44 states (including the District of Columbia) responded to a KFF survey about policies and trends relating to telehealth delivery of behavioral health services. Officials reported high utilization rates of telehealth services for behavioral health purposes since the beginning of the pandemic and plan to continue telehealth expansion permanently.

The public health emergency (PHE) has again been renewed for the COVID-19 pandemic as of yesterday by the Biden administration. The announcement was made by the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, which marks it as the 12th renewal.

In this debut podcast series of What's on Your Mind podcast, Perry Cohen, Pharm.D., CEO of The Pharmacy Group, recently shared his thoughts on the current state of healthcare and especially the management of pharmacy costs. This new monthly series brings listeners into the minds of Managed Healthcare Executive's® Editorial Advisory Board members. Cohen has decades of experience in managed care and has been on the editorial advisory board since 1994.

It was found that excess mortality for this group of people with disabilities was 7.4 times that of community-dwelling Medicaid beneficiaries of the same age who were not receiving home and community-based services, and 26.6 times that of the general population.

In this week’s episode of Tuning In to the C-Suite podcast, Briana Contreras, an editor of Managed Healthcare Executive spoke with Julien Pham, MD, founder and managing partner of Third Culture Capital (3CC).

This year's most-read news on MHE features "Paxlovid Rebound: Rare But Real," "John Fetterman’s Atrial Fibrillation and Stroke: ‘I Almost Died’," "Pandemic Mortality Rate Much Lower in Canada Than in the US. Why?," and more.

This year's most-read print stories from our monthly publication include 'Paxlovid Rebound: Rare But Real,' 'Diabetes Medications Find New Life as Weight-Loss Drugs,' 'Health Plans Prepare to Post Prices for Consumers,' and more.

This year's most-listened to podcasts include a conversation with Jim Graham of Prime Therapeutics about a digital transformation management system in healthcare and another with Tim Ashe of WellSky on how to save Medicare home healthcare.

This year's most-read cancer news included researchers finding a possible liver cancer immunotherapy, cancer patients facing many negative impacts from COVID-19 and more.

Conference season was a busy one this year with many stories to come out each one MHE covered. The most-read conference stories from our audience began with Atopic Dermatitis treatment at AMCP to discussion series with PBM leader Alan Lotvin of CVS Caremark.

COVID-19 remained to be a hot topic among readers of MHE as it is still affecting thousands, weekly. Articles about COVID-19 that were most-read by our audience resulted with the effects of Paxlovid at the top to the the BA.5 variant.

Less than half (45%) of all nursing facility residents and less than a quarter of staff (22%) are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations. That is a sharp drop from the 87% of nursing facility residents and staff who completed their primary vaccination series.

In this week's episode, Briana Contreras, an editor of Managed Healthcare Executive, spoke with Chuck Salvo managing director of ToneyKorf Partners. The pair touched on topics involving mergers between healthcare organizations, the question whether CEO's are being replaced and the importance of a board in a healthcare organization.

Dr. Syra Madad of the NYC hospital system and an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs responded to Dr. Anthony Fauci's, director of NIAID, statement made in late November that the U.S. is “certainly” still in the middle of a Covid-19 pandemic.

The early response to neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nvAMD) treatment with aflibercept (Eyelea) was much greater than the response to bevacizumab (Avastin), in hopes of weaning those affected off the therapies sooner.

In this week's episode of "Tuning In to the C-Suite" podcast Briana Contreras, editor of Managed Healthcare Executive, spoke with Ted Quinn CEO and founder of Activate Care.

A recent study shows teenagers' mental health and brain maturation increased due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Liver stiffness can increase in patients with a history of COVID-19 infection. The use of ultrasound shear wave elastography showed a significant increase in stiffness.

In this week’s episode of "Tuning In to the C-Suite," Briana Contreras, editor of Managed Healthcare Executive, spoke with Ramin Bastani, CEO of Healthvana.