Articles by Briana Contreras

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.

39% of healthcare industry professionals expect investment in emerging technologies to decrease due to inflation and rising costs.

In this final video of a three-part video series, Oncologist and Vice President of Medical Affairs at Quest Diagnostics, Dr. Yuri Fesko, shares a key takeaway from Quest's recent Health Trends Survey. Results reveal how cancer diagnosis numbers are still lagging to pre-pandemic levels of 11%. Fesko adds that bringing cancer screenings to the community can increase diagnosis numbers, leading to care sooner.

AMCP CEO Susan A. Cantrell spoke with Managed Healthcare Executive® about Preapproval Information Exchange (PIE) Act of 2022, which would allow drug manufacturers to share information about a drug with payers before the drug is approved. Cantrell says passage of the PIE Act would speed up patient access to new medications.

In this week's episode, Editor of Managed Healthcare Executive, Briana Contreras, had the pleasure of speaking with Chief Clinical Officer of WellSky, Tim Ashe, about the issue of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services cutting rates for Medicare home health. Tim addressed the solutions that are either underway or those that can potentially preserve access to these services.

Dr. Yuri Fesko of Quest Diagnostics says the "pathways approach" helped one health system speed the time between diagnosis and targeted treatment for lung cancer by as much as a month for some patients. This is the second part of a three-part video series.

Oncologist and Vice President of Medical Affairs at Quest Diagnostics, Dr. Yuri Fesko, talks about why shortening this gap is critical to ensuring better patient outcomes and shared steps hospitals, health systems and physicians can take now to reduce testing delays, improve outcomes and lower costs of care. This is the first part of a three-part video series.

Results from the test reveal that high levels of the immune biomarker Thymus and Activation-Regulated Chemokine (TARC) in babies increases their chances of developing atopic dermatitis.

Taking 80 mg of the high-cholesterol statin drug daily can control patients' vitiligo activity and protect them against the hazardous effects of dyslipidemia.

In this episode of Tuning In to the C-Suite, Briana Contreras, editor with Managed Healthcare Executive spoke with Dr. Yuri Fesko, oncologist and vice president of Medical Affairs at Quest Diagnostics. In the conversation, Dr. Fesko addressed the ongoing issue of long gaps of times between receiving a diagnosis for a type of cancer and finally getting the treatment for it. Dr. Fesko shared the benefits a number of sectors receive when treating patients sooner and the steps to get there.

While initial infection of the virus has resulted in risk of hospitalization and mortality, researchers looked into the effects of reinfection as data has been unclear.

These areas in the new MA territory and existing ones can enjoy some of Cigna's new benefits this year.

The state's child uninsured rate dropped to 6.6% in 2021, its lowest level in recent history. This drop represents a 19% decline from a peak of 8.1% in 2018.

Cigna’s Express Scripts will now manage Centene’s pharmacy benefit services to make prescription medications more accessible and affordable for customers. The multi-year partnership is slated to officially begin Jan. 1, 2024.

Three more cities join the 100-plus others that have endorsed the Medicare for All legislation. City Councils in Denver, Colorado, Gainesville, Florida, and Kent, Ohio passed the resolution in support of the universal program that ends for-profit healthcare.