News

Health advocacy has emerged as an important facilitator to help employers and consumers better navigate healthcare and insurance.

As the industry's largest managed care organizations continue to acquire smaller, consumer-directed health plans, it is evident that providers are making their move into the CDHP arena.

Early assessments of the growing consumer-directed healthcare trend point to the model's potential, but with cautious optimism. Mary O. McWilliams, president of Regence BlueShield in Seattle, believes a little less caution and a lot more action on the part of health plans will give consumer-directed healthcare (CDHC) just the kick it needs.

In 2005, Medicaid surpassed Medicare as the largest government healthcare expenditure, and it is the fastest growing population of covered lives, say industry experts.

The New York Times reports that patients in New York City often have trouble securing a reimbursement for a $75 visit to the nutritionist, who counsels them on controlling their diabetes.

In many existing IT systems, gathering and analyzing data simply takes too many steps.

Employers and other purchasers of health insurance continue to face rising costs for employee health benefits. The overall cost of providing such benefits has reached such a high level that employers are now often requiring their employees to share part of this burden.

New technologies have lifecycles that include a curve of initial resistance as well as an eventual plateau of acceptance. There are some who rush out and buy the latest gadget the minute it's available, and others—myself included—who wait to see how the new product or service pans out. Some of us cling to our old ways and our comfortable devices because we're used to them or because they're so much less expensive. At some point in time, however, we resisters just have to give in.

Patients who have switched statins should receive special care as they are substantially less likely to be compliant and remain on the treatment long enough to obtain its full benefits, researchers reported in the American Journal of Managed Care.

Objective: Pharmacy-managed medication assistance programs (MAP) have the potential to recoup losses incurred by the pharmacy department, but whether this offsets the personnel cost of the program has not been well-established. The purpose of this study was to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the pharmacy-managed MAP at an urban teaching clinic at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Conn.

Methylphenidate transdermal patch (Daytrana, Shire/Noven) to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

The number-one health policy issue for the new year is to find ways to keep healthcare costs under control. An aging population and more costly medical technology could increase current spending trends. These developments could have an impact on efforts to reduce the number of uninsured people in the United States and could prompt initiatives to make consumers more aware of treatment costs and options.

Sitaxsentan, a highly selective endothelin-A (ET-A) receptor antagonist undergoing FDA review as an alternative to bosentan for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) treatment, demonstrated improved efficacy over bosentan in a recent study.

Because several molecular pathways are relevant in the pathogenesis and progression of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), combinations of therapies are being explored to better manage the disease.

The presence of antibodies to heparin is an independent risk factor for potentially serious complications following cardiac surgery, even in patients who do not develop heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), said David Kress, MD, at the 71st international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

A pivotal phase 3 trial of a fully human monoclonal antibody, denosumab, that prevents bone destruction is under way and includes 7,800 postmenopausal, osteoporotic women aged 60 to 90 years. The primary endpoint is new vertebral fractures versus placebo and secondary end points are safety and tolerability of the new agent. Phase 2 clinical trials have demonstrated that denosumab is superior to aldendronate in preserving bone mineral density (BMD), reported researchers during the American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego, Calif.

Beta blockers, touted for 3 decades as first-line drugs in the treatment of hypertension, are less than optimum in comparison to other antihypertensive drugs and raise the risk of stroke, according to a meta-analysis published online by The Lancet.

Early invasive strategy, recommended by the current guidelines in the treatment of patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS), did not excel when compared with its more conservative alternative in a randomized study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Patients who have switched statins should receive special care as they are substantially less likely to be compliant and remain on the treatment long enough to obtain its full benefits, researchers reported in the American Journal of Managed Care.

Utilizing statin therapy, researchers have provided further evidence that absolute reductions in LDL-C reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD) and other major vascular events.

Dronedarone, a class III multichannel blocker developed for maintenance of sinus rhythm and ventricular rate control, reduces the risk of all-cause hospitalizations and death in patients with atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF/AFl), according to a post-hoc analysis of 2 randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials.

The calcium sensitizer levosimendan was associated with an improvement in the clinical course of patients compared with placebo when used for the treatment of acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF), but the drug failed to reduce 6-month mortality when compared with dobutamine in a similar set of patients.

Drugs that reduce brachial blood pressure similarly can have different effects on central blood pressure. This finding may explain differences in clinical end points between antihypertensive drugs that lower blood pressure similarly, said Bryan Williams, MD, lead investigator of the Conduit Artery Function Evaluation (CAF?) trial, a substudy of the Anglo-Scandinavian Cardiac Outcomes Trial (ASCOT).

In a trial comparing high-dose atorvastatin with moderate-dose simvastatin in patients with stable coronary heart disease (CHD), the aggressive LDL-lowering strategy offered no significant advantage over the less aggressive strategy in reducing the number of coronary events, said Terje R. Pedersen, MD.

A nicotinic acetylcholine receptor partial agonist is an effective smoking cessation aid, said Serena Tonstad, MD, PhD, professor of nutrition at the Ulleval University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.

The anti-anginal agent ranolazine, in phase 3 clinical trials, reduced anginal frequency in patients experiencing 3 or more anginal attacks per week despite daily treatment with amlodipine 10 mg/d said Peter Stone, MD, lead investigator of the Evaluation of Ranolazine in Chronic Angina (ERICA) trial.

An exploratory analysis of PROactive (Prospective Pioglitazone Clinical Trial In Macrovascular Events Study) demonstrated a significant reduction in the risk of a second coronary event in patients with type 2 diabetes who took pioglitazone.

Oral anticoagulant therapy proved superior to the combination of clopidogrel and aspirin in preventing adverse vascular outcomes in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). This outcome was observed in a large, multicenter trial at the 2005 AHA meeting in Dallas, comparing warfarin therapy with combination antiplatelet therapy in patients with AF.