Month: March 2021

Recon takes an analytical look behind select developments in healthcare

Balancing the humors: an opinionated take on NEJM highlights for March 2021

A new approach to schizophrenia Antipsychotic agents treat schizophrenia by manipulating the dopaminergic system. While they are effective at treating psychosis, they can have major side effects and they lack the ability to address so called negative symptoms e.g. apathy, lack of social connection, poverty of thought.  Enter the muscarinic cholinergic system which is tricky to manipulate in the CNS without untoward systemic effects as Lilly found out with their M1/4 agonist xanomeline.  Karuna Therapeutics has now licensed the molecule and cleverly combined with it with trospium, an antagonist with

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How much are Humana’s value-based care models really taking out of utilization?

All that effort for only 0.4% savings Since 2014, HUM has reported on the performance of primary care in value-based arrangements (“VBA”) vs. traditional contracts (“non-VBA”)[1] in Medicare Advantage (MA).  One statistic regarding total medical expenditures (TME) is, at first blush, a stunner.  The most recent data (2019) shows PMPM TME of VBA members measured only 0.4% less than for non-VBA members.  Given HUM’s long-standing strategic commitment to value-based care, commentators are puzzled: is the whole value-based enterprise in vain? does healthcare transformation require quasi-geologic timeframes to deliver meaningful cost

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All immunity: an opinionated take on NEJM highlights for February 2021

We can cure Hep C but not immunize against it Sovaldi and other drugs have made curing chronic Hepatitis C a routine, if expensive, proposition. Still, given how common Hep C infection is, and how it can irreversibly damage the liver without overt signs, a vaccine would be highly valuable. Unfortunately, an NIH sponsored trial with a GSK vaccine in 548 IV drug users at high risk of contracting the disease failed to show any protection: 28 participants developed chronic Hep C evenly divided between the placebo and treatment groups. 

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