Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
This Mental Health Startup Aims To Help Those With Serious Illness
Stat: New Startup Aims To Build Support For Serious Mental Illness
The number of startups focused on mental health has surged in the wake of the pandemic and a growing mental health crisis. They want to help people to meditate on their phones, or prescribe drugs that can be delivered right to their doors. But few focus on the most vulnerable patients, people with serious mental illness, in the real world. (Gaffney, 12/22)
USA Today: BD Medical Safety Advocate Sounds Alarms On Products, Gets Fired
A medical safety expert raised alarms a product could cause cancer to reoccur. Then he was fired. At the time, it seemed like the perfect fit — the right doctor for the right job at the right company. (Washburn, 12/22)
San Francisco Chronicle: UCSF Apologizes For ‘Unethical’ Experiments With Mosquitoes And Pesticides On Prisoners Decades Ago
According to the newly released report, two UCSF dermatologists — one of whom remains at the university — experimented on “at least” 2600 people incarcerated at the California Medical Facility, a prison hospital in Vacaville. The report said that the experiments did not appear to have the green light from a UCSF committee that was supposed to approve any studies on human subjects. Records of the subjects providing informed consent, indicating they had full knowledge of the ramifications and were voluntarily participating, were also sparse. (Parker, 12/21)
On the costs of health care —
Stat: Private Equity Firm Catalio To Buy Hedge Fund HealthCor
Two veterans of the health care investing world — Art Cohen and Joe Healey — are planning to step back and sell their hedge fund to the fast-growing private equity firm Catalio Capital Management. Cohen and Healey’s firm, HealthCor Management, will be absorbed by Catalio in what three people with knowledge of the deal described as mainly a stock transaction. The deal is expected to close at the start of 2023. (DeAngelis, 12/21)
KHN: ER Doctors Call Private Equity Staffing Practices Illegal And Seek To Ban Them
A group of emergency physicians and consumer advocates in multiple states are pushing for stiffer enforcement of decades-old statutes that prohibit the ownership of medical practices by corporations not owned by licensed doctors. Thirty-three states plus the District of Columbia have rules on their books against the so-called corporate practice of medicine. But over the years, critics say, companies have successfully sidestepped bans on owning medical practices by buying or establishing local staffing groups that are nominally owned by doctors and restricting the physicians’ authority so they have no direct control. (Wolfson, 12/22)
KHN: Centene, Under Siege In America, Moved Into Britain’s National Health Service
In the final days of 2020, the U.S. health insurer Centene made a swift incursion into Britain’s prized National Health Service, one of the world’s largest employers. A Centene subsidiary, Operose Health, took over nearly three dozen medical practices in London — gateways for NHS care — in a deal worth tens of millions of dollars. The subsidiary became the largest private supplier of general practice services in the United Kingdom, with 67 practices accounting for 570,000 patients. (Spolar, 12/22)
KHN: ‘An Arm And A Leg’: Getting Insurance To Pay For Oral Surgery Is Like Pulling Teeth
Health coverage generally does not cover dental work. But Susan Rice of Atlanta should have been the exception: She was hit by a speeding car, causing extensive damage to her own “grill.” She’s been fighting to get her oral surgery covered for 18 months and counting. The “An Arm and a Leg” podcast connected Rice with University of South Carolina law professor Jacqueline Fox, who, when she was practicing law, fought insurers on behalf of patients. Fox said Rice has “done everything right.” Her insurer’s refusal to pay may be tied to a bigger problem in the Affordable Care Act marketplace … one that’s led to a class-action lawsuit. (Weissmann, 12/22)
