High-deductible health plans may make diabetics delay care
People with diabetes may be more likely to delay care if they have a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) compared to those in low-deductible plans.
Researchers evaluated data from almost 34,000 individuals whose employers began offering only plans with $1,000-plus deductibles, forcing them to abandon their plans with deductibles under $500. As a control group, they used data on nearly 300,000 workers with diabetes whose deductibles consistently cost $500 or less.
The two groups waited equally long to get care before the first group had to switch. But afterward, the first group waited 1.5 months longer to seek care for new diabetes symptoms (e.g. chest or leg pain), 1.9 months longer to have diagnostic tests and 3.1 months longer to undergo related procedures. Further, their annual out-of-pocket costs increased between 43% and 53%.
Delaying diabetes care can lead to serious complications, including strokes, heart attacks and amputations. The results from this study appeared in Annals of Internal Medicine on Monday. (Reuters article)
Florida sues CVS and Walgreens over sale of opioids
Hoping to bring justice to the opioid crisis, Florida is amending a complaint it filed earlier this year to include the nation’s two largest pharmacy chains.
The complaint says CVS and Walgreens cooperated with opioid manufacturers “to sell and ship ever-increasing quantities of opioids into Florida.”
CVS distributed 700 million dosages of opioids in the Sunshine State between 2006 and 2014, while Walgreens has distributed billions of dosages there since 2006, it said.
"We will continue to pursue those companies that played a role in creating the opioid crisis," said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement. "Thousands of Floridians have suffered as a result of the actions of the defendants."
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, nearly 2,800 people died from opioid overdoses in Florida in 2016, the most recent year for which data is available. The opioid-related mortality rate there is above the national average. (ABC article)
Amazon/Berkshire/JP Morgan collaboration snags talent from BCBS
Dana Gelb Safran, former chief performance measurement and improvement officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA), will join the (still-unnamed) venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JP Morgan as “head of measurement.”
Safran’s background in both tech and value-based care are in line with what many have suspected the initiative will want to achieve. According to BCBSMA’s website, she “is widely recognized as having contributed to the empirical basis for our nation’s push toward a more patient-centered health care system.”
Before working at BCBSMA, Safran also worked at the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment. (CNBC article)