Examining Health Equity Among Different Racial and Ethnic Subpopulations With Multiple Sclerosis
March 15th 2021Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic disease that involves demyelination of plaque throughout the white and gray matter of the central nervous system. The early stages of MS are usually marked by a relapsing-remitting course of neurological deficits, which progress toward continuous, permanent dysfunction and disability. Of those with a diagnosis of MS, 74% are women.
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CVS Health Poised to Reenter ACA Marketplaces
March 5th 2021Aetna got out of the ACA marketplace business in 2018. Now CVS Health, which completed its acquisition of the insurance company in late 2018, is hopping back in and will brand the policies as a “CVS Health-Aetna” product for the first time.
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Biden Administration Moves to Stop Medicaid Work Requirements
March 4th 2021The Trump administration didn’t get very far with healthcare reform; the ACA was neither repealed nor replaced. But former CMS Administrator Seema Verma made a run at revamping Medicaid by using Section 1115 waivers to add working requirements. Now the Biden administration is taking steps to stop the requirements before they get started.
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Adherence to Disease-Modifying Therapies in Pregnant MS Patients Can Reduce Hospitalization
March 2nd 2021Results from research analyzing data of females with multiple sclerosis (MS) who became pregnant, and the impact of adherence to their disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) on hospital utilization and cost, were recently released by AllianceRx Walgreens Prime.
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Rural Enrollees in Medicare Advantage Have Been Switching to Traditional Medicare
March 1st 2021More than one out of every 10 seniors enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan and living in a rural area switched to traditional Medicare in the last few years, prior to the pandemic. The switch was driven primarily due to low satisfaction with care access, according to a study recently published in Health Affairs from researchers at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health.
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Addressing Racism and Implicit Bias in Medicine
February 24th 2021Dark skin is significantly underrepresented in medical literature and curricula, comprising an average of just 4.5% of images in medical textbooks. In response, clinicians of all licensures and specialties are often insufficiently trained to recognize disease patterns in patients of color. To confront this issue, Project IMPACT was created to raise awareness and adoption of educational and clinical resources and solutions that strengthen clinicians’ ability to accurately diagnose disease in black and brown skin and improve health equity.
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Next Gen ACOs: Savers or Spenders?
February 11th 2021The Next Generation ACO program, was supposed to end in 2020, but it was granted a one-year reprieve because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) wants that extension to become permanent and says the “Next Gen” ACOs save the Medicare program a lot of money. Former CMS Administrator Seema Verma begs to differ.
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Opinion: Alternative Vaccine Strategy To Reduce COVID-19 Morbidity, Mortality
February 9th 2021Population immunity is required in order to beat COVID-19. According to an opinion piece by Michael Criqui and Robert M. Kaplan on NPR, a quicker end to the pandemic requires two policy changes: delaying inoculation of those with prior COVID-19 infections, and temporarily widening the interval between the vaccine doses.
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Mobile Healthcare Services Brings Customized COVID-19 Testing to Massachusetts
February 8th 2021Mobile Healthcare Services has launched in Massachusetts, offering a variety of customized COVID-19 testing program options and conducting more than 30,000 mobile COVID-19 tests per month to help mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.
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