Lawmakers bashed the business practices of pharmacy benefit managers during a House Committee on Oversight and Accountability hearing Tuesday. When they were asked repeatedly about steering patients, increased drug prices and pharmacy closures, the company executives largely refuted claims thrown at them. The hearing coincided with the release of a new report (PDF) compiled by the committee that found the three largest PBMs — which are vertically integrated with insurers and account for approximately 80% of the market — embrace anticompetitive behavior, reduce reimbursement rates for independent pharmacies, overcharge payers and patients through utilization and spread pricing and force manufacturers to pay rebates in order to earn a higher-tiered placement on drug formularies.
It's easy for physicians to show empathy with nonverbal cues during in-person or even video visits. But how can clinicians illustrate how much they care during asynchronous message exchanges? It's a question physicians have been asking as they increasingly turn to messaging as a form of healthcare, with some health systems even charging for interactions through patient portals like MyChart. To show "digital empathy," physicians can start by acknowledging the messages promptly, according to Matthew Sakumoto, MD.
The release on July 10 of the proposed Calendar Year 2025 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has prompted discussions among healthcare industry professionals. On July 16, the Washington, D.C.-based Primary Care Collaborative (PCC) hosted an online discussion with CMS leaders about how Medicare Part B payment policy could improve health through strengthening primary care.
VA’s planned restart of its electronic health record system rollouts draws lawmaker concern
he Department of Veterans Affairs is looking to restart deployments of its beleaguered Oracle Cerner electronic health record system at additional medical facilities in fiscal year 2025, but lawmakers said the results of the agency’s most recent rollout does not justify efforts to resume the project. VA announced in April 2023 that it was pausing additional deployments of the EHR system to address a series of technical glitches, patient safety concerns and other issues plaguing the medical facilities where the new software had been deployed.
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