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AHA Urges DoJ to Scrutinize UnitedHealth-Change Healthcare Deal

The hospital association contends that the divestiture plans on the part of UnitedHealth and Change Healthcare do little to assuage concerns about competitiveness.

Healthcare mergers and acquisitions, COVID-19

Source: Getty Images

By Kyle Murphy, PhD

- Reading the news, it is becoming increasingly difficult to shake feelings of déjà-vu...

AHA Challenges UnitedHealth’s Acquisition of Change Healthcare

In a letter to the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, AHA expressed concern over the implications of UnitedHealth Group’s $8 billion acquisition of Change Healthcare, which is expected to close later this year.

UnitedHealth Group announced in January that Change Healthcare will combine with Optum, UnitedHealth Group’s diversified health services company. The acquisition surfaced with the goal of reducing administrative burden, enabling healthcare data exchanges, and streamlining revenue cycle management.

But the combination of both organizations’ vast datasets could have negative impacts on patient care, claims processing, and denials. AHA contended that Optum will have the data and incentives to inform its reimbursement rates based on competing payers’ data, resulting in reduced competition. READ MORE

Implicit Bias Leading to Care Access Barriers for Many Patients

Racial discrimination and implicit bias in medicine is affecting Black and Hispanic patients at rates three- and two-times more often than White people, and it’s coming to serve as a serious care access barrier, concluded a report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The report found that 3.2 percent of patients of all races experienced some sort of unfair treatment in the medical setting. That figure came out to 7.7 percent of Black respondents and 5.2 percent of Hispanic respondents, signaling a racial bias permeating the healthcare industry.

Nearly three-quarters of those who said they experienced discrimination in the healthcare setting took action to mediate it, with 39 saying they handled it by delaying their medical care. READ MORE

Telehealth Has the Potential to Save Independent Practices

A new report from Kareo finds that more than half the practices saw patient visits stay the same or grow in 2020, and three-quarters expect to see growth in 2021. In the meantime, the telehealth adoption rate among practices jumped from 22 percent in 2019 to 41 percent in 2020 to 80 percent at the end of that year.

While much of the growth can be attributed to the adoption of connected health platforms and tools to make up for the loss of in-person traffic, experts say these practices now have the confidence to plan a long-term telehealth strategy that combines the two.

According to the report, independent practices are changing the way they think about the future. In 2019, some 27 percent were looking to align with another practice or hospital, part of a troubling trend that had had some to predict the end of the small doctor’s office or clinic. Now, however, some 86 percent of practices surveyed say they have no plans to charge partnerships or merge. READ MORE

FDA Broadens EUA for Eli Lilly’s COVID-19 Treatment

The federal agency recently broadened the emergency use authorization for Eli Lilly and Company’s COVID-19 treatment, baricitinib, to allow for treatment without remdesivir.

Under the new authorization, providers can administer baricitinib treatment for adult and pediatric coronavirus patients two years of age or older with confirmed COVID-19 who require supplemental oxygen or invasive mechanical ventilation. Additionally, inpatient pharmacies in the US may order one milligram and two milligram tablets of baricitinib through Eli Lilly and Company’s authorized distributors.

The agency’s previous authorization in November 2020 restricted treatment with baricitinib for use only in combination with remdesivir. READ MORE

Payer Efforts to Build Trust Reduce COVID-19 Vaccine Disparities

SCAN Health Plan has announced a significant decrease in coronavirus vaccine disparities. The payer stated that various efforts at building trust with members led to the decrease.

The health plan reported that vaccination gaps between minority populations and white members dropped significantly between February 2021 and July 31, 2021.

Black SCAN Health Plan members were 17 percent less likely to have received the vaccine than their White counterparts in February 2021. However, the gap shrank over the next five months to a six percent difference.

The vaccination gap between Latinx SCAN Health Plan members and White SCAN Health Plan members likewise diminished. In February 2021, the vaccination gap between these two populations of beneficiaries was 11 percent. By July 2021, the gap declined to four percent. READ MORE

Biomarker Discovery Helps Predict COVID-19 Severity

Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) researchers discovered a biomarker in blood samples that with predictive analytics can determine which patients will develop COVID-19 symptoms.

Through their retrospective study using predictive analytics, the team of MUSC researchers discovered that a reduced level of sphingosine is significantly associated with developing COVID-19 symptoms. Additionally, high levels of sphingosine and acid ceramidase (AC) are associated with asymptomatic infections.

Asymptomatic patients who tested positive for COVID-19 had a slight increase in serum sphingosine levels compared to those who tested negative. In those who developed symptoms, there was a 15-fold reduction in sphingosine levels. Conversely, around 75 percent of asymptomatic patients had high AC levels, while most symptomatic patients had no detectable AC. The presence of serum AC correlated with higher levels of sphingosine. READ MORE

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