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As Medicare’s telehealth flexibilities rapidly approach their expiration date, researchers at Cornell The researchers examined 2022 Medicare fee-for-service claims to understand how physician characteristics impacted telehealth use. They focused on assessment and management visits because these are more amenable to telehealth compared to visits where there is an intervention.
The researchers point out that, overall, female physicians were “significantly more likely” than male physicians to offer telehealth consultations. They note that the reasons for this phenomenon deserve further study, but they also offer a hypothesis as to the explanation: “It is possible that female physicians, who tend to have greater family responsibilities, place a higher value on the potential for scheduling and location flexibility offered by telehealth.” A reach without evidence? Perhaps! But to me, it’s a good reminder that when we talk about telehealth utilization numbers, we need to consider not only how the technology enables more people to receive care, but also how it can ease the burden on physicians who provide care.
The Uncertain Future of Hims Weight Loss
Health for her and him has built a thriving business around the shortage of popular weight-loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound. Under FDA rules, drugs subject to shortages can be manufactured by compounding pharmacies not affiliated with drugmakers, and Hims, along with a litany of other online suppliers, has stepped in, offering GLP-1s to patients lining up in droves to get them.
Hims appears set to continue offering compounded versions of the drugs even after the shortages officially end, taking advantage of a loophole that allows clinicians to prescribe versions of a drug that better meet a patient’s needs. For example, a child who can’t swallow pills might need a liquid version of a drug. But it’s unclear whether a person would benefit from a personalized dose of semaglutide.
Elie Lilly And Novo NordiskThe companies that market the drugs are obviously not happy about this, and experts tell STAT’s Katie Palmer and Nicholas Florko that the strategy could land Hims in court.
Read more here
The Quest to Remove Race from a Kidney Disease Calculator
In a new paper, STAT’s Usha Lee McFarling and Katie Palmer detail the contentious battle to remove race from a clinical calculator that helps assess the severity of kidney disease. Until recently, kidney function estimates relied on flawed science to assign different numbers to black patients and others, downplaying the severity of the disease. Thanks to the hard work of researchers and probing questions from patients who questioned why assessments should take race into account, the standard practice in most clinics has changed in just a few years. But not before some bitter battles that pitted a new generation of doctors with a more nuanced understanding of race against an older generation of doctors who trusted the tools they had been using for decades.
The new story is the latest installment in Embedded Bias, a series in which Usha and Katie explore the use of race in clinical algorithms used in medicine and why it’s so difficult to take race out of the equation.
Read the latest story here
Abbott’s Latest Data on Heart Clamps Don’t Resolve the Debate
It was supposed to be a tiebreaker, but after a Abbott The heart clip has shown mixed results in two trials, with another study not quite resolving the issue. The device, called MitraClip, is implanted to treat mitral regurgitation, a condition in which blood flows back into the left heart chamber. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2019.
According to the newly presented data, people who received the device were hospitalized for heart failure less often than the control group and had better outcomes on a quality-of-life measure. But as STAT’s Lizzy Lawrence reports, without a reduction in mortality, the results paint a murky picture of the device’s value. Experts said more research is needed to better understand who benefits most from the treatment, especially since patients in the most recent trial were less sick than those in previous studies.
Read Lizzy’s review here
Top-notch fundraising, authorization and data
- Curio Digital Therapeuticswhich received FDA clearance earlier this year for a digital treatment for postpartum depression, has raised $10 million. The company’s founder and CEO Shailja Dixit told STAT that Curio will soon announce insurance coverage for its PPD product. It now plans to develop products around fertility and menopause. Investors include RYSE Asset Management, ONCEa venture capital arm of Otsuka, Capital Bridge PointAnd Ostria.
- Great Health The FDA approved DaylightRx, a prescription version of its app that helps people manage anxiety. Unlike the over-the-counter version, which is available through employers and health insurance plans, the prescription version can be ordered by doctors for patients in their care. In August, Big Health received approval to market SleepioRx, a prescription version of its app for people with insomnia.
- Click on Therapeutics announced positive results from a pivotal trial for CT-132, its digital migraine treatment. The results have not yet been peer-reviewed or evaluated by the FDA.
What we read
- Snoo can’t help the people who need it most, STAT
- Dialysis Could Extend Life for Elderly Patients, But Not by Much, New York Times Says
- Recursion presents mixed data on leading AI-derived drug candidate, STAT
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