Peter Wehrwein has been the lead editor of Managed Healthcare Executive since February 2020.
What Do TikTok Videos Have To Say About Isotretinoin? | AAD 2024
March 9th 2024A content analysis of 75 TikTok videos showed that most have positive information about the oral acne medication, which was previously sold under the brand name Accutane. But larger majority (77%) of the videos have negative information about isotretinoin, and a large percentage of those videos give the positive effects only a passing mention, if any at all.
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Upended: Can PBM Transparency Succeed?
March 6th 2024Simmering tensions in the pharmacy benefit management (PBM) industry have turned into fault lines. The PBMs challenging the "big three" have formed a trade association. Purchaser coalitions want change. The head of the industry's trade group says inherent marketplace friction has spilled over into political friction.
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UnitedHealth Says a “New Instance” of Change Healthcare Is Up and Running
March 2nd 2024The company has confirmed that group representing itself as ALPHV/Blackcat, a ransomware-as-service criminal group known to cybersecurity experts, is behind the cyberattack on the pharmacy claims processor owned by UnitedHealth.
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The deliberate disconnection of Change Healthcare to ring fence a cyberattack entered its seventh day today. Prescribers are finding ways to get pharmacy claims processed, and UnitedHealth Group says disruption to the dispensing of prescriptions has been minimal. But independent pharmacies want more information and protection from financial consequences from pharmacy benefit managers.
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Positive Results for Xolair For Food Allergy Protection. But Will the Protection Last?
February 25th 2024Researchers say the open-label extension of their study suggests the response to Xolair (omalizumab) will be a durable, but an accompanying editorial says that “protection will most likely disappear” after treatment is stopped.
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Beyond Hair Styling: Stylists As HIV PrEP Messengers
February 24th 2024Duke researchers tested a program that involves hair stylists in raising awareness, possible uptake of HIV preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among Black women, a group that is disproportionately affected by new HIV infections.
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HHS Needs More Rebate Information To Negotiate Medicare Drug Prices, Say USC Experts
February 19th 2024The Health and Human Services department could wind up overpaying (or possibly underpaying) for the drugs for which it is negotiating a “maximum fair price” for Medicare under the Inflation Reduction Act, argue experts at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics. A fuller picture of rebates and net prices could help that from happening, they say.
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SGLT2 Inhibitors Superior to Other Oral Diabetes Drugs for People with Type 2 Diabetes and NAFLD
February 12th 2024A large retrospective study of patients in South Korea shows that the SGLT2 inhibitors seem to do a better job with bringing about regression of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
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Housing Linked to Lower Cancer Mortality Among U.S. Veterans
February 8th 2024A study published in Health Affairs shows that lung and colorectal cancer mortality was higher among veterans who were unhoused compared with those who were housed and higher yet in those who lost housing after they received a diagnosis.
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Republicans voted in favor of a bill that would prohibit the use quality-adjusted life years (QALY) metrics by federal agencies, Medicare Advantage plans and Medicaid managed care organizations. Some patient groups celebrated the passage. Experts have worried that "similar measures" language could stifle all comparative effectiveness analysis.
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New AAD Acne Guidelines Warn About High Cost, Access to New Treatments
February 6th 2024New acne guidelines from the American Academy of Dermatology recommend Winlevi (clascoterone), a topical treatment, and Seysara (sarecycline), a narrow-spectrum tetracycline, but qualify the recommendation as conditional because of concerns that the high cost may affect equitable access to treatment,
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