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Category Archives: Value
Colonoscopies fail to reduce colon cancer deaths in landmark study
https://mailchi.mp/4587dc321337/the-weekly-gist-october-14-2022?e=d1e747d2d8
In a randomized controlled trial (RCT) study of 85K Europeans, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, colonoscopies were found to reduce incidence of colorectal cancer by only 18 percent—much less than earlier large studies—and have no impact on ten-year colorectal cancer mortality rates. This is the first study to directly compare individuals invited to receive colonoscopies with a control group receiving no cancer screening.
While the study’s findings surprised many researchers, an important caveat to the headline takeaways is that a secondary analysis of study participants who actually completed their colonoscopies found a 50 percent reduction in death, though the decision to accept the invitation likely correlates with other factors that improve mortality outcomes.
The Gist: We were surprised to learn this was the first RCT to assess the effectiveness of colonoscopies—15M of which are performed in the US each year—and which comprise a $36B market. While the study’s results need careful interpretation, it reminds us that much of established medical consensus has yet to be “proven” by rigorous scientific research.
While we don’t expect this study’s results to significantly change colonoscopy recommendations, it does place greater emphasis on the question of value generated by widespread preventative screenings. Colonoscopy will almost certainly remain the gold standard for colon cancer screening in the US, but if these results bear out, other less invasive types of screening, like home-based fecal immunochemical testing, could be viewed as equivalent options and receive more traction.
Cartoon – Tyranny of Expectations
Michael Dowling: ‘Every single US hospital leader should be screaming about what an abomination this is’
Americans and global leaders have responded to the May 24 shooting at a Texas elementary school with heartbreak, anger and calls for change to better fight gun violence. But if you’re paying attention, the calls out of healthcare — from trauma surgeons, pediatricians, nurses, leaders and more — carry a distinct type of exasperation and sorrow.
“I’m in one of my hospitals now, sitting with some staff talking about it — it’s just so frustrating,” Michael Dowling, president and CEO of New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health, told me over the phone early Wednesday morning. “This does not represent what the United States stands for — that we allow people who should never be allowed to carry a gun to do so and walk into a school and kill fourth graders.”
The attack by a lone 18-year-old gunman at Robb Elementary School in the small town of Uvalde, Texas, has left at least 19 students and two adults dead. Students in the school, grades 2 through 4, were two days away from summer vacation.
Unlike many other known threats to our health, seeing the medical community condemn mass shootings still seems to leave some Americans doing a double take. It’s increasingly difficult to see what has them confused.
In 2016, the American Medical Association declared gun violence a public health crisis after a lone gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Even after the declaration, healthcare professionals and leaders continued to defy insistence from gun rights advocates that gun violence was not within their specialty or expertise. Or as the National Rifle Association put it in simpler terms in 2018: “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” The #ThisIsOurLane movement started then. The attempt to silence medical professionals ironically made their calls for action louder.
As healthcare professionals responded to the ongoing public health emergency of COVID-19, the arms race grew and gun buying intensified — “a surge in purchasing unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” as one gun researcher at the University of California, Davis, put it. People who already owned guns bought more, and people who had never owned a gun bought them too. In 2020, firearm-related injuries were the No. 1 cause of death of children and teens, according to the CDC.
Every day, 321 people are shot in the United States, and more than 40,000 Americans die from gun violence each year. Yet some healthcare executives still fear that taking the position that gun violence is a public health crisis will throw them into political turmoil given how toxic politics are in this country. It’s one position for the AMA and its 250,000-plus members to take, but another for an individual leader who may be the face of an organization in their community. There are risks of offending board members, donors, elected officials and other constituents — including patients. But here’s the thing: There will always be a reason to delay, to soften language, to wonder if this mass shooting is the one to react to.
Mr. Dowling urges his colleagues to step it up, noting how hospital and health system leaders can be ambassadors for gun safety in their communities, given the influence they wield as the largest employers in many communities.
“This is about protecting people’s health. This is about protecting kids’ lives. Have some courage. Stand up and do something,” he said. “Put the interest of the community in the center of what you think about each and every day. Our job is to save lives and prevent people from illness and death. Gun violence is not an issue on the outside — it’s a central public health issue for us. Every single hospital leader in the United States should be standing up and screaming about what an abomination this is.
“If you were hesitant about getting involved the day before May 24, May 24 should have changed your perspective. It’s time.”
Northwell established The Gun Violence Prevention Learning Collaborative for Health Systems and Hospitals, a grassroots initiative that gives healthcare professionals the space to have open dialogue about the impact of gun violence, share best practices and collectively take action. Learn more here.
Cartoon – Racing Towards Value-based Reimbursement
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Private equity accelerates its push into physician practice
https://mailchi.mp/bfba3731d0e6/the-weekly-gist-july-2-2021?e=d1e747d2d8
As we reported recently, healthcare M&A hit record highs in the first quarter of 2021—with deal activity in the physician practice space surging 87 percent. The graphic above highlights private equity firms’ increasing investment in the sector over the last five years. Both the number and size of PE-backed healthcare deals have increased substantially from 2015 to 2020, up 39 and 45 percent respectively.
In 2020, physician practices and services comprised nearly a fifth of all transactions, with PE firms driving the majority. One in five physician transactions involved primary care practices—a signal that investors are banking on profits to be made in the shift to value-based care models.
Meanwhile, PE firms are still rolling up high-margin specialty practices, with ophthalmology, orthopedics, dermatology, and anesthesiology groups all receiving significant funding in 2020. PE investment in physician practices will likely continue to accelerate, as investors view healthcare as a promising place to deploy readily available capital.
But we remain convinced that private equity investors have little interest in being long-term owners of practices, and will ultimately look for an exit by selling “rolled-up” physician entities to health systems or insurers.
Cartoon – Major Breakthrough
Alzheimer’s drug presents Democrats’ new policy dilemma
With a $56,000-a-year price tag, Biogen’s newly approved Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm is dovetailing into the debate on Capitol Hill over how to lower prescription drug prices.
- Actually addressing Aduhelm’s price raises complicated policy challenges, Axios’ Caitlin Owens reports.
Why it matters: Democrats may be positioning themselves to push policy measures that assign value to drugs and then price them accordingly — a huge potential blow to the pharmaceutical industry.
To truly address its launch price, policymakers have to grapple with big questions the U.S. system currently avoids: How should we determine the value of a drug, and who gets to make that decision?
- President Biden proposed giving an independent review board the power to determine the Medicare rate for new drugs that don’t have any competition.
- Democrats’ most prominent drug legislation is a House bill that gives Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices.
- Sen. Ron Wyden, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, recently called out Aduhelm by name in a document outlining the principles that will guide the Senate’s drug pricing bill, a hint that the Senate’s legislation will take a different direction than the House’s.
The bottom line: “Any kind of process for valuing new drugs like Aduhelm take you immediately into the controversial quagmire of how to quantify improvements in quality of life for people,” said KFF’s Larry Levitt.
HENRY KOTULA 