Health Care / Medicine

Two Pennsylvania lawmakers are warning their constituents about UPMC, claiming the health system has built a monopoly that negatively affects both employee wellbeing and patient safety. They said UPMC has ‘considerable power over workers, which it wields to keep wages low, conditions unsatisfactory and prevent union organizing.’

For patients that are uninsured or not using their insurance and choosing to pay out of pocket, providers are required to give a patient an estimate of all reasonably expected costs ahead of time, referred to as the Good Faith Estimate (GFE).

Sunnyside is promoting ‘Dry(ish)’ January that promotes drinking in moderation versus complete sobriety. The company offers a direct-to-consumer app that helps users make a plan for their drinking and provides peer coaching.

MemorialCare, Ballad Health, Cedars-Sinai, and UNC REX Healthcare recently participated in Censinet’s $9 million funding round. The company’s flagship product is a cloud-based network that allows healthcare organizations to share and manage risk data to strengthen cybersecurity planning.

A budget estimate attached to proposed legislation in Montana raises questions about whether the state's cash-strapped communities will have the capacity to care for patients with Alzheimer’s disease, other types of dementia, or traumatic brain injuries by July 2025, when involuntary commitments would cease under the plan.

California's Office of the Attorney General contends that drugmakers and pharmacy benefit managers work together to ‘aggressively raise the list price of insulin in lockstep with each other to artificial levels.’ Insulin manufacturers deny the allegations, pointing to availability of lower-cost versions of their products.

In a media briefing during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, Paul Hudson said unlike Sanofi, large pharma companies with top-selling drugs have a portfolio akin to a leaky bathtub because in a few years, they will have to replace much of that revenue as drug patents expire.

Boston Consulting Group hosted a panel during the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in which Merck's chief strategy officer, a healthcare leader from Goldman Sachs, an investment executive, and a senior medical devices executive from Medtronic weighed in on trends the life sciences industry can expect to see in 2023.

Fewer new drugs won FDA approvals in 2022 compared to previous years, but some of the products that passed regulatory muster are indicative of trends expected to continue into 2023. For example, more gene and cell therapies are on track to face regulatory decisions in the coming year.

CommonSpirit Health is facing a proposed class-action lawsuit over a ransomware attack it suffered last fall that exposed 623,774 patients' personal data. However, hospitals' data breach lawsuits usually never make it court, a legal expert said.

As macroeconomic forces continue to negatively impact the healthcare sector, health tech experts predict that 2023 will be another slow year for the IPO market. However, they think consolidation deals will continue to be a constant, according to a new report.

Nearly a quarter of private sector employees don’t have any paid sick days, according to the National Partnership for Women & Families. Providing this benefit will save employers down the line, one expert argues.

By easing regulatory requirements for animal testing, the Act allows scientists to use innovative, leading-edge technologies more fully in future drug development strategies.

In a letter addressed to President Joe Biden, 25 governors argued that the COVID-19 public health emergency should end in April. An estimated 18 million people could lose Medicaid coverage if that happens, according to a recent report.

In 2022, the healthcare sector is on track to meet or exceed the more than 50.4 million patient records that were breached last year. As we look ahead to 2023, increasing cybersecurity budgets will be a necessity for healthcare organizations, despite their tight financial circumstances.

The PASTEUR Act, as amended, would provide $6 billion in federal funding over several years to give drugmakers incentive to develop and manufacture lifesaving medications for the small but growing number of infections highly resistant to antibiotics.

CMS hopes the changes will increase healthcare access for underserved populations, streamline the plan selection process, and simplify enrolling in Marketplace coverage.

Gun violence is a public health crisis, and lawmakers are taking small steps toward treating it that way, said Kris Brown, president of gun violence prevention nonprofit Brady United. But there is still a long road ahead in the fight to protect American communities against gun-related injuries and fatalities, she said.

Health benefit costs increased 3.2% in 2022, but employers are expecting costs to jump even higher in 2023, a Mercer report showed. Employers' top priorities right now are providing benefits that attract and retain employees and boosting mental health support.

A hospital corporation with facilities across Massachusetts must pay $1.9 million in civil penalties in a lawsuit alleging that an employee stole more than 17,000 units of controlled substances and the hospitals did not have accurate records of controlled substances to prevent such illegal activity.