Articles
Value-Based Contracting: CMS Final Rule Leaves ‘Multiple Best Price' Questioned Unresolved (1/4, Cathy Kelly, Pink Sheet) reports “...In general, the rule takes a welcome step toward removing regulatory obstacles to value-based contracting by allowing more flexibility in Medicaid rules around reporting ‘best price.’ It offers two solutions. One would allow manufacturers to report multiple best prices and the other would essentially codify existing practices in a bundled sales arrangement, in which manufacturers would report the best price as the average net price offered in a value-based program.” Paid Subscription Required
Podcast: Value-Based Care Isn’t Transforming Health Care Spending (1/5, Alan Weil and Sherry Glied, Health Affairs) reports “In this week’s episode of A Health Podyssey, Alan Weil invites Sherry Glied, dean of the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University, to the program. They take a step back from the main findings from the paper and discuss the relationship between administrative costs and the high costs of healthcare prices.” Full
We Know Whether Medical Treatments Work. We Ignore How Likely They Are to Help. (1/5, Daniel Morgan, The Washington Post) comments “...A 2017 review of research on doctors' understanding of benefits and harms of a range of treatments found that most clinicians overestimated a treatment's effectiveness and underestimated its harms. Overall, doctors were correct about 10 percent of the time. We are finding similar results in work we are completing. This problem has been recognized by evidence-based medicine for many years, but is not commonly discussed. The precision medicine movement attempted to better identify the sliver of people who will benefit from marginally effective treatments, primarily using genetic testing, but that's had minimal impact on day-to-day practice.” Full
Machine Learning, Real-World Data Find New Uses for Existing Drugs (1/5, Jessica Kent, Health IT Analytics) reports “...Using causal inference, researchers categorized the active drug and placebo patient groups that would be found in a clinical trial. The model tracked patients for two years, and compared their disease status at that end point to whether or not they took medications, which drugs they took, and when they started the regimen. ‘With causal inference, we can address the problem of having multiple treatments. We don't answer whether drug A or drug B works for this disease or not, but figure out which treatment will have the better performance,’ said [Ping Zhang, assistant professor of computer science and engineering and biomedical informatics at Ohio State]...” Full
Press Releases
ICER Seeks Applications for New Health Technology Assessment Fellowship (1/5, ICER Press Release) “...‘The ICER HTA Fellows will receive mentorship from HTA researchers, an opportunity to collaborate with health care experts around the country, and hands-on training in advanced statistical modeling,’ said Steven D. Pearson, MD, MSc, ICER’s President. ‘We’re hopeful that this immersive program will not only launch these individuals’ careers across industry and academic settings, but that it will also build a pipeline of future HTA leaders in the US.’ Upon completion of the program, Fellows will be able to apply evidence synthesis strategies and methodologies to the evaluation of prescription drugs, medical tests, and other health care and health care delivery innovations. Graduates of this program will go on to conduct research in an academic institution, think tank, managed care organization, pharmaceutical company, or healthcare facility.” Full
Ibrutinib with Rituximab in Previously Untreated CLL: Indication of Added Benefit Over FCR (1/5, IQWiG Press Release) “The combination of ibrutinib plus rituximab is approved for the treatment of adults with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). In an early benefit assessment, the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) now examined which advantages and disadvantages this drug combination has for the patients. For patients who could also be treated with the chemo-immunotherapy FCR, the assessment found an indication of a major added benefit in comparison with this appropriate comparator therapy.” Full
Journals
Online Tools to Synthesize Real-World Evidence of Comparative Effectiveness Research to Enhance Formulary Decision Making Shuxian Chen, Jennifer Graff, Sophia Yun, Brennan Beal, Jamie T Ta, Aasthaa Bansal, Joshua J Carlson, David L Veenstra, Anirban Basu, Beth Devine January 2021, Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy JMCP