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Showing posts with label Hepatitis C. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hepatitis C. Show all posts

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Medical Costs: Why Target the Drug Industry Now

The pharmaceutical industry may indeed be a major factor in the future success of reducing workers' compensation treatment costs and improve the success rate of care. Such action will reduce the cost of medical treatment and likewise reduce permanent disability awards.

This week several landmark announcements were made regarding the treatment of mesothelioma and Hepatitis C. The pharmaceutical industry is making great strides if treatment and cure.

Perhaps targeting the drug industry at this time merely to reduce costs is short sighted. The entire program needs to be encouraged. 

US FDA: Designation for CRS-207 in Mesothelioma Treatment

Merck Announces Results from Phase 2/3 Study of Investigational Chronic Hepatitis C Therapy Grazoprevir/Elbasvir in Patients with Advanced Chronic Kidney Disease

Saturday, August 2, 2014

$1,000 a pill: Will that kill or cure workers' compenstion

Hepatitis is an occupationally related illness and treatment for the disease may now even become more expensive in the short run. How this impacts the system may predict the future of pharmacuetical  costs. This post is shared from thehill.com
CVS Caremark is siding with the pharmaceutical industry over the rising costs of specialty drugs.
In an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Troyen Brennan, chief medical officer at CVS, and William Shrank, the company’s chief scientific officer, defended Gilead’s hepatitis C drug Sovaldi, which costs $1,000 a pill.
Brennan and Shrank say the drugs value should include its effectiveness compared to other treatments, how it improves quality of life for patients and how it can reduce the overall cost of healthcare.
“While a daily oral medication that costs $1,000 per pill gains attention, the more important issue is the number of people eligible for treatment,” they said.
They point out previous hepatitis C treatments had terrible side effects and were less effective, leading doctors to hold back from prescribing them.
They also note that while Sovaldi has a monopoly on the market right now, a half dozen new hepatitis C drugs are excepted to be available in the next 4 years and will likely drive down the cost of the drug as competition increases.
One regiment of the drug can cost well over $84,000 and 3.2 million people in the U.S. are estimated to have hepatitis C.
Sovaldi has...
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Friday, July 25, 2014

World Hepatitis Day: Think again

World Hepatitis Alliance

18 June 2014 -- Viral hepatitis – a group of infectious diseases known as hepatitis A, B, C, D, and E – affects millions of people worldwide, causing acute and chronic liver disease and killing close to 1.4 million people every year. Hepatitis remains largely ignored or unknown. In April this year, WHO issued new recommendations on treatment of hepatitis C. In May, World Health Assembly delegates from 194 Member States adopted a resolution to improve prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of viral hepatitis. On World Hepatitis Day, 28 July 2014, WHO and partners urge policy-makers, health workers and the public to "think again" about this silent killer.
Hepatitis B

240 millionpeople are chronically infected with hepatitis B virus.
Hepatitis C

150 millionpeople are chronically infected with hepatitis C virus.
Hepatitis E

20% Hepatitis E can induce a mortality rate of 20% among pregnant women in their third trimester.

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Thursday, June 26, 2014

What Impact Will Hepatitis C Drugs Have on Medical Costs? Look Here

Drug prices are a major and unpredicable cost in calcularing workers' compensation exposure. Recent developments in hepatitis C treatment illustrate the issue. Today's post is shared from blogs.wsj.com
Just what impact will hepatitis C treatments have on medical spending over the next few years?
The answer to this question has been the subject of heated debate thanks to the Sovaldi treatment sold by Gilead Sciences . The medication can cure 90 percent of the patients who have the most common form of the affliction, and costs $1,000 a day for a 12-week course, or $84,000 for one patient.
Medications for other diseases may be more expensive, but insurers worry about the potential outlay, given that approximately 3.2 million people in the U.S. are chronically infected with hepatitis C, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Some estimates suggest the number is closer to 5 million. For months, state Medicaid programs and private payers have blanched at the cost.
Other drug makers hope to catch up to Gilead in the race to develop a still more effective and convenient treatment that works even faster. But it remains unclear to what extent a price war may ensue. Meanwhile, concerns mount these medicines will, collectively, become budget busters.
Of course, there is another way to view the issue, which is that the cost of treating patients who may otherwise need countless physician visits, hospital care and a liver transplant can run higher....
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Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Prices Soaring for Specialty Drugs, Researchers Find

Workers' Compensation insurance covers the FULL cost of prescription drugs.Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

Even as the cost of prescription drugs has plummeted for many Americans, a small slice of the population is being asked to shoulder more and more of the cost of expensive treatments for diseases like cancer and hepatitis C, according to a report to be released on Tuesday by a major drug research firm.
The findings echo the conclusions of two other reports released last week by major pharmacy benefit managers, which predicted that spending on so-called specialty drugs would continue to rise.
The report, by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, also found that consumers’ use of health care — visits to the doctor, hospital admissions and prescription drug use — rose in 2013 for the first time in three years, mainly because of the improving economy, it said.
“Following several years of decline, 2013 was striking for the increased use by patients of all parts of the U.S. health care system,” Murray Aitken, executive director of the IMS Institute, said in a statement. He noted that the spike came before the Affordable Care Act, which has helped provide health insurance to millions of new customers, fully went into effect.
But even as consumers became more confident about spending money on health care last year, the report found that a divide is developing between those with medical conditions that can be treated with cheap generic drugs, and those with rare and often more serious diseases that can come with breathtaking price tags.
More than...
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