California’s Much-Touted IVF Law May Be Delayed Until 2026, Leaving Many in the Lurch

California lawmakers are poised to delay the state’s much-ballyhooed new law mandating in vitro fertilization insurance coverage for millions, set to take effect July 1. Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked lawmakers to push the implementation date to January 2026, leaving patients, insurers, and employers in limbo. The law, SB 729, requires state-regulated health plans offered…

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What RFK Jr. Isn’t Talking About: How To Make Vaccines Safer

Within an hour of receiving a covid vaccination in November 2020, Utah preschool teacher Brianne Dressen felt pins and needles through her arms and legs. In the medical odyssey that followed, she suffered double vision, chronic nausea, brain fog, and profound weakness. Once a rock climber, she became a couch potato. Although Dressen’s symptoms were…

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Microplastics Are Here, There, Everywhere

By KIM BELLARD Vaccine experts are going rogue in response to RFK Jr’s attacks on vaccine safety. Health insurers promise – honest…this time – to make prior authorizations less burdensome (although not, of course, to eliminate them). ChatGPT and other LLMs may be making us worse at learning. So many things to write about, but…

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AHIP to simplify prior authorization process

AHIP (formerly America’s Health Insurance Plans) released a statement yesterday saying that their health plan members “announced a series of commitments to streamline, simplify and reduce prior authorization.” 48 US health plans signed off on the statement. What were AHIP’s 6 commitments? Standardizing Electronic Prior Authorization. Participating health plans will work toward implementing common, transparent submissions…

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The Hospital Word Has Become a Tale of the Haves and Have-Nots

Health system performance has splintered into three distinct groups — leaders, strugglers and those stuck in the middle, according to Fitch Ratings’ Kevin Holloran. At the HFMA Annual Conference, he and Mayo Clinic CFO Dennis Dahlen discussed how technology and innovation are accelerating this divide. The post The Hospital Word Has Become a Tale of…

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Nektar’s Novel Eczema Drug Meets Trial Goals, But Differentiation From Dupixent Remains Unclear

Nektar Therapeutics’ biologic drug rezpegaldesleukin take a new approach to atopic dermatitis, or eczema, stimulating proliferation of immune cells that tamp down excessive immune responses. The drug met the goals of a Phase 2b study, but analysts note that cross-trial measures show those results are short of the marks achieved by Dupixent, the top biologic…

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5 Takeaways From Health Insurers’ New Pledge To Improve Prior Authorization

Nearly seven months after the fatal shooting of an insurance CEO in New York drew widespread attention to health insurers’ practice of denying or delaying doctor-ordered care, the largest U.S. insurers agreed Monday to streamline their often cumbersome preapproval system. Dozens of insurance companies, including Cigna, Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare, agreed to several measures, which…

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