December 16, 2021 | ACP partners with YouTube to battle disinformation

INDUSTRY NEWS

CVS expanding primary care offerings

CVS Health announced an initiative to use telemedicine, new clinics as well as teams of doctors, nurses and pharmacists to better manage patient health. It will add hundreds of primary care centers to stores, and care teams could include also dietitians, mental health providers and social workers. Walgreens and other health care companies, including UnitedHealth Group Inc. are also moving deeper into providing care, the AP reports. There’s a lot of money at stake: Millions of aging baby boomers will need more regular care and have coverage through government-funded plans like Medicare Advantage. (AP)

Employer coverage jumps by 6.3%

The average per-employee cost of employer-sponsored health insurance jumped 6.3% in 2021, according to a Mercer employer survey released Monday. That’s the highest annual increase since 2010, averaging out to $14,542 per employee. Last year’s increase was 3.4%. One key reason: People started getting routine care again. Cost growth among smaller employers (50-499 employees) was 9.6%, while for larger employers, it was 5.0%. Additionally, spending on prescription drugs rose 7.4% in 2021 among large employers, driven by an increase in spending on specialty drugs of 11.1%. (Healthcare Dive; Mercer announcement)

INNOVATION & TRANSFORMATION

ACP partners with YouTube to battle disinformation

The American College of Physicians is partnering with YouTube to create new educational content to help combat health misinformation about the COVID-19 virus, vaccination and treatments. The videos will focus on communication strategies for clinicians as well as providing proactive, trusted information in the clinicians’ voice. In addition, ACP is developing video content for the public to answer their questions about vaccines with trusted information from physicians. (ACP announcement)

CONSUMERS & PROVIDERS

Crowdsourcing dignity

Urogynecologist Ryan Stewart, recently DO, tweeted that he had the opportunity to redesign his new practice and asked actual patients for ideas. Among the top suggestions: stirrup warmers, size-inclusive gowns and equipment, patient-controlled thermostats, exam beds that don’t face the door and a layout that keeps conversations private. "Those things weren't big surprises, but the frequency with which they've shown up shows me that as a specialty — or really all of medicine — we've got a lot to work on," Stewart says. (NBCLX; Yahoo Life)

Financial frustration can damage patient satisfaction

The patient financial experience—including the billing process—leaves many patients unhappy. For example, 41% of respondents to a patient survey sponsored by health care fintech company Cedar said they were unsatisfied with their billing experiences. This affects overall satisfaction: 93% of respondents say the quality of the billing and payment experience is an important factor in whether they will return to a provider. Nearly a third (31%) expressed dissatisfaction with payer-provider communication and coordination. Too often, patient must be the liaison between payer and provider. (PatientEngagementHIT; Cedar announcement)

It’s official: COVID is even worse than EHRs

Clinician burnout continues to rise. Before COVID-19 began, the percentage of clinicians reporting some degree of burnout was consistently about 25%. Post-pandemic, that number has climbed to approximately one-third, according to a new KLAS Research Arch Collaborative report. EHR frustration still contributes to burnout, but it has been surpassed by pandemic-related factors such as workload and chaotic work environment. During 2021 all contributing factors to clinician burnout increased in frequency, and the rate of increase accelerated, according to the report. (EHR Intelligence)

NEW & NOTED

Improving access to naloxone: The first of 19 naloxone (aka Narcan) vending machines to be located around the state of Indiana will be placed at the St. Joseph County Jail in South Bend. The machine holds up to 300 naloxone kits and is free to the public to access. (AP)

Bipartisanship on expanding telehealth: House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Lloyd Doggett introduced legislation last week to permanently remove restrictions on where Medicare patients can access telehealth services. It would lift the requirement that patients live in rural areas and receive telehealth services at participating health facilities for it to be covered by Medicare. Rep. Devin Nunes, the senior Republican on the panel's health subcommittee, is a cosponsor. (Modern Healthcare*)

Consider yourself warned: Healthy men between the ages of 20 and 65 who vaped nicotine daily were more than twice as likely to report erectile dysfunction than men who did not vape, according to research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. This association held true even for men without any other health concerns or habits connected to sexual dysfunction. (CNN; American Journal of Preventive Medicine)

MULTI-MEDIA

Integrating clinical pharmacists into primary care

In a recent webinar sponsored by the Get the Medications Right Institute, Peter Teichman, MD, MPA, and Shaowei Wan, PhD, BPharm, discussed integrating clinical pharmacists into the primary care team. They shared practical ideas for collaboration and offered insight into how clinical pharmacists are expanding the ability of primary care doctors to resolve complex clinical challenges and enhance quality of care for their patients. (GTMRx)

MARKETVOICES…QUOTES WORTH READING

“The spread of health misinformation continues to be a serious threat to the public health. The best tool to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus and its variants is to build trust in the use of science, based on the best available evidence,”—George M. Abraham, MD, MPH, MACP, President, ACP, in an announcement about a partnership with YouTube.