Trump to end the IRA ‘pill penalty’

As reported by EndPoints: President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order offering support for a change to the IRA’s “pill penalty,” one of the industry’s long-standing policy priorities that could affect billions of dollars in drug costs under Medicare. The executive order on drug pricing contains a grab-bag of policy proposals, some of…

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How a New PE-Backed RCM Company Plans to Fix the ‘Transactional Bowels of US Healthcare’

Providers need a revenue cycle management platform that is more affordable and accurate, said Jeremy Dekinsky, CEO of Smarter Technologies, during MedCity News’ INVEST conference. New Mountain Capital formed Smarter Technologies this week by combining three separate platforms it had already acquired. The post How a New PE-Backed RCM Company Plans to Fix the ‘Transactional…

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Understanding contract management for healthcare

Effective contract management for healthcare organizations is pivotal in this complex and highly regulated world. Healthcare organizations, whether large hospitals, clinics, or individual practitioners, contract with various entities, including vendors, insurance providers, and regulatory bodies. These contracts govern everything from purchasing medical supplies to services reimbursement, making healthcare contract management a critical aspect of running…

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Cost impact of BTKi selection in Medicare patients with CLL

That is the title of my paper out today in the Journal of Comparative Effectiveness Research written with co-authors Adam Kittai, Dipen Patel, Nadine Zawadzki, Vikram Shetty, Yazan Barqawi, and Joanna Rhodes. The abstract is below. Aim: To estimate cost savings associated with covalent Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor (cBTKi) choice in patients with treatment-naive (TN) and…

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How big a problem are catastrophic health expenditures? The Watts Catastrophic Health Expenditure (WCHE) metric explained

Catastrophic healthcare expenditures (CHE) are highly problematic for families are are unequally distributed throughout society. However, how can we quantify the incidence, intensity and inequality of CHE in a society? A paper by Ogwang and Mwabu (2025) provide one methodology by using the Watts poverty measure and adapting it to measure CHE. We first describe…

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