drugs
Last year CT physicians and teaching hospitals received $34 million from manufacturers and GPOs
New data shows that 21 teaching hospitals and 13,310 physicians in CT received $34 million in payments and gifts from drug and device manufacturers and Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) last year. Open Payments, the searchable federal data source, was created by the Affordable Care Act which requires that manufacturers disclose payments to physicians and teaching…
Read MoreICER to report on unjustified drug price increases
Early next year, the nonprofit Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) will issue its first report on US drug price increases that are not supported by clinical evidence. ICER is a leader in assessing the value of medical treatments, including medications. ICER’s benchmark price ranges for new drugs have been used by Medicaid programs,…
Read More31 ways to save on healthcare in Connecticut’s budget
Connecticut’s state budget is facing future deficits and health spending is a large share of the budget. The state now spends $3.8 billion between Medicaid and the state employee health plan to cover about a million state residents. Health care spending outside the state budget is also growing. Connecticut has the sixth highest per capita…
Read MoreWNPR’s Where We Live focuses on skyrocketing prescription costs, ACA protections at risk
Yesterday, WNPR’s Where We Live, “Sick of the Cost of Prescription Drugs?”, drilled down into the rising costs of prescription drugs that are squeezing out other priorities and on Trump administration ACA policies that jeopardize coverage for people with preexisiting conditions and raise premiums for everyone. Guests included US Senator Chris Murphy, State Rep. Sean…
Read MoreCTNJ: Healthcare questions for Connecticut’s Next Governor
How will Connecticut’s next governor fix the state’s healthcare system? It’s a big job but they will have a lot more leverage and power than many appreciate. Read more
Read MoreChartbook: Prescription drugs driving CT health costs across payers
According to a new Chartbook, prescription drugs are the largest driver of health costs in our state. We spend more per person on prescriptions than all states but Delaware and that number is rising faster here than most states. Charts regarding Medicaid spending have been corrected to reflect that pharmacy costs in the program have…
Read MoreChartbook: CT drugs costs high and growing fast
14.4% of our state’s economy was devoted to health care services in 2014, slightly below the US average, according to a new Chartbook on CT health spending. Based on newly released data from CMS actuaries, the analysis finds that CT health costs per person are not surprisingly high but we out-perform most other states in…
Read MoreMD drug anti-gouging bill passes into law, CT Senate passes drug benefits fairness bill
On Friday, a Maryland billto control generic drug prices passed into law without the Governor’s signature. Maryland’s Attorney General Frosh championed this first-in-the-nation anti-gouging bill. The issue was raised in response to extreme price increases in older drugs such as EpiPen, naloxone, and Daraprim. The bill requires Maryland’s Medicaid program to notify the Attorney General…
Read MoreHealth Care Cabinet tackles drug costs
At yesterday’s meeting, CT’s Health Care Cabinet agreed to create four working groups to develop recommendations and options to control drug spending in the state. We also reviewed a report from CT’s APCD on the Top 50 Highest Total Cost Drugs in CT. The Cabinet has been taking a deep dive into rising prescription drug…
Read MoreFDA committee tackles how to assess drugs that target serious infections but affect small populations
Last week’s meeting of the FDA’s Antimicrobial Drugs Advisory Committee was unusual. We didn’t address the merits of a single new drug the FDA is considering for approval but how to fairly assess drugs that target a single bacterial species causing very serious and deadly infections but that affect small populations. Getting sufficient numbers of…
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