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Adopting evolving computer system tools like artificial intelligence and machine learning in managed care pharmacies have resulted in efficiency when addressing the challenges they are faced with, according to Jessica Hatton, PharmD, BCACP, associate vice president of Pharmacy at CareSource and Nick Trego, PharmD, senior vice president of Clinical Analytics and Client Services at HealthPlan Data Solutions, Inc.

The program yielded savings of $25,000 per patient in its pilot phase but is not expected to produce savings as a routine offering because reimbursement for home infusion was matched to reimbursement at a facility. Horizon executive Timothy O’Shea, Pharm.D., M.S., says cost savings were a “secondary outcome” of the program and noted the high patient satisfaction.

Just over 160 patients have participated in the insurer's oncology home infusion program since it started in late 2020. Patient satisfaction is high, according to Horizon officials, who are looking to expand the program with other providers in its market and to include more drugs that patients could be treated with at home.

The increase is close to inflation and wage growth but much steeper than the atypically small increase in 2022.

Patients were more likely to stick with buprenorphine for 90 days, suggesting the value of virtual care. But researchers also found disparities in access.

Jessica Hatton, PharmD, BCACP, associate vice president of Pharmacy at CareSource caught up with MHE to discuss value assessment tools and their use in the managed care pharmacy space. This topic and more were addressed by Hatton during her presentation today in Orlando at the AMCP Nexus 2023 conference.

The results of a recent feasibility study on the outpatient administration of cell therapies is creating growing interest in whether home-based management may be possible in the future.

In a session presented at the AMCP Nexus 2023 conference in Orlando, Adam Colborn, JD, director of Government Relations at AMCP, discussed how the recent ERISA preemption rule influenced employer pharmacy benefits, and also highlighted a policy that hasn't received much attention in the managed care pharmacy space: California's CalRx Biosimilar Insulin Initiative.

Adam Colborn, JD, director of Government Relations at AMCP, addressed topics at this year's AMCP Nexus conference in Orlando such as transparency, cost sharing mandates and variables that affect the supply and demand curve for pharmaceuticals within legislation at a federal, but mainly state level. Colborn also touched on the large PBM reform regulation happening currently in New York as it could be a model that other states can follow.

Assembly Bio’s established areas of research is focused on herpesviruses (HSV), hepatitis B virus and hepatitis D virus.

The increase is close to inflation and wage growth but much steeper than the atypically small increase in 2022.

Patient affordability and access to specialty drugs and cell and gene therapies are just a couple of priorities self-insured employers should keep in mind when managing specialty spend, according to Shawna Ricker, PharmD, clinical pharmacist consultant of Clinical Client Strategy at Highmark, Inc.

Melissa Andel, M.P.P., of CommonHealth Solutions LLC, says there has been some retreat from earlier proposals for severe regulation to an emphasis on disclosure and transparency.

Melissa Andel, M.P.P., of CommonHealth Solutions LLC, thumbnailed the four pieces of legislation advancing through Congress that would tighten regulation and oversight of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).

Mark Dybul, M.D., the keynote speaker for the closing session of the IDWeek meeting in Boston, delivered an impassioned defense of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) as its reauthorization by Congress has got ensnarled in abortion issues.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) expert Sallie Permar, M.D., Ph.D., of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center spoke about the phase 3 trial of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine against CMV and another candidate being developed by Merck that showed some promise in a phase 2B trial.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) expert Sallie Permar, M.D., Ph.D., of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center says lack of awareness and funding as well as some characteristics of the virus itself have slowed development of vaccine against CMV.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) expert Sallie Permar, M.D., Ph.D., of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center says the epidemiology of congenital CMV hasn’t varied much over the years and that the condition does disproportionately affect lower socioeconomic populations and communities of color in the U.S.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) expert Sallie Permar, M.D., Ph.D., of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center says that as the most common infectious cause of long-term disability CMV should be the number one target of vaccine development.

Two-thirds of patients with renal comorbidities achieved “clinical success” with the new fecal microbiota treatment for C. difficile.

At this year’s ID Week conference in Boston, Igho Ofotokun, MD, MSc, FIDSA, Grady Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine, shared the latest data that COVID-19 research team, RECOVER, has gathered on Long COVID and its symptoms.

Laws since 1996 have sought to assure that coverage of behavioral health treatments does not take a back seat to physical medicine. Amid a national crisis in mental illness and addiction, that new world of equality has not arrived. But is it on the way?

The chair of Harvard Medical School’s bioinformatics department says the deterministic, discrete data of billing and reimbursement means that artificial intelligence’s first big impact in healthcare is likely to be in “the business of healthcare.”

The new chief scientific officer of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation talked about what motivated him to pursue a career researching and taking care of Crohn’s and colitis patients.

Two drugs that target the c-MET protein are in phase 3 trials.

Payers and hospitals are at odds over proposals that would level out payments to hospital outpatient departments and physician offices.