Kroger Health To Offer GLP-1 Weight Loss Drugs At In-Store Clinics
In other industry news: providers push for expanded billing codes for remote patient monitoring; rural pharmacies finding it hard to stay open; the rise of unregulated home testing; CityMD will pay $12 million to Justice Department over alleged covid payments violations; and more.
Modern Healthcare:
Kroger Health's Little Clinics To Offer GLP-1s
Kroger Health is revamping the weight management program offered in its in-store clinics and offering glucagon-like peptide agonists such as Wegovy and Zepbound. The move by Kroger, announced Friday, adds it to the growing list of health care providers interested in expanding their patient base by offering GLP-1s, which are surging in popularity among consumers. (DeSilva, 6/7)
Modern Healthcare:
Remote Patient Monitoring Companies Push For Expanded CPT Code
Six years after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services rolled out the first standalone billing code for remote patient monitoring, there is debate over how the technology will be reimbursed. The American Medical Association’s CPT Editorial Panel postponed a May vote on a proposal that would have lowered the threshold for how much remote patient monitoring must occur before a provider can seek reimbursement. (Perna, 6/7)
Modern Healthcare:
Waystar Raises $968M In IPO
Shares of Waystar closed below their offering price Friday on the first day of trading for the healthcare payment technology company. Waystar raised $967.5 million in its initial public offering, selling 45 million shares priced at $21.50 a share. On Friday, shares closed at $20.70 a share, down 3.72%. (Turner, 6/7)
The Wall Street Journal:
CityMD Agrees To Pay $12 Million To Justice Department Over Alleged Covid-19 Payments Violation
CityMD has agreed to pay more than $12 million to the Justice Department for allegedly submitting false claims for payment for Covid-19 testing to the Health Resources and Services Administration governmental program for uninsured patients. The urgent-care chain’s settlement resolves allegations related to the violation of the False Claims Act, the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs said Friday. The act encourages people with knowledge of suspected false claims to sue on the government’s behalf. (Ojea, 6/7)
AP:
Rural Pharmacies Fill A Health Care Gap In The US. Owners Say It's Getting Harder To Stay Open
Basin Pharmacy fills more than prescriptions in rural northern Wyoming. It’s also the key health care access point for the town of about 1,300 people and the surrounding area. The storage room contains things that people rely on to survive, such as a dozen boxes of food for patients who must eat through tubes. The pharmacy fills prescriptions in bulk for the county jail, state retirement center and youth group homes. Some patients come from Jackson, five hours away by car, for the specialized services. (Shastri, 6/7)
The Washington Post:
Doctors Couldn’t Help, So They Turned To Unregulated Home Health Tests
Angelika Sharma was desperate. An array of basic first foods — from bananas to sweet potatoes — caused her 6-month-old Annika to vomit uncontrollably, so many times in one night that she landed in the hospital for dehydration. Half a dozen pediatric specialists largely dismissed her daughter’s ailments, Sharma said. ... After a year and a half, an answer came finally in the form of a Facebook ad for Tiny Health, a Silicon Valley start-up that could test her baby’s gut microbiome. (Dwoskin, Gilbert and Hunter, 6/9)
