Why it matters: You already know workforce retention and burnout have been a huge problem across every segment of health care — particularly amid the great resignation and the stressors of the pandemic.
More than half of the states have now expanded their Medicaid postpartum coverage from the federally mandated 60 days to one year, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed to Axios.
If you want to understand why lowering retail drug prices can be so difficult, look no further than billionaire investor Mark Cuban's online pharmacy.
What's happening: Cost Plus Drugs launched in January in a bid to offer transparent, lower drug prices. Cost Plus' direct-to-consumer model marks up drugs from cost by 15%, plus a $3 pharmacy fee, cutting wholesalers, PBMs, pharmacies and insurers out of the equation.
It cost an average of $22,463 to cover a family through employer-sponsored health insurance in 2022, according to an annual benefits survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation that found premiums remained relatively flat year-to-year while wages and inflation surged.
Why it matters: Nearly 159 million Americans get health coverage through work, and coverage costs and benefits have become a critical factor in a tight labor market.
Bob Evans Farms Foods is recalling close to 7,600 pounds of Italian pork sausage that may be "contaminated with extraneous materials, specifically thin blue rubber," according to an alert posted by the USDA.
Why it matters: The Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service is urging consumers not to eat the sausage products and said they should be "thrown away or returned to the place of purchase."
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday indefinitely postponed a meeting of outside experts to help decide whether to allowover-the-counter sales of birth control pills.
Driving the news: HRA Pharma sought the designation last July for its Opill contraceptive. The scheduling of an advisory committee meeting for Nov. 18 was considered unusually fast for the agency.
Radiologists, nuclear medicine specialists and vascular surgeons are bracing to see if they'll take the worst of Medicare physician payment cuts next year.
Why it matters: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is due to release a final fee schedule as early as this week that's expected to continue phasing in reductions to medical specialties -- and likely prompt appeals to Congress for a year-end reprieve.
States could start the new year grappling with a surge in Medicaid spending to accompany supply chain pressures, workforce shortages and the effects of inflation.
The big picture: The end of the COVID-19 public health emergency could result in state Medicaid outlays growing at a rate of 16.3% in fiscal 2023, even with efforts underway to control future program costs, according to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Fossil fuel "addiction" is rapidly worsening climate change as the related effects of extreme weather leave 98 million people facing severe food insecurity and heat-related deaths surge, a new report warns.
The big picture: The burning of fossil fuels including coal, oil and natural gas that cause toxic air pollution kills some 11,800 Americans and about 1.2 million people globally every year, according to the report, published in the medical journal The Lancet Tuesday ahead of next month's UN Cop27 climate summit in Egypt.
