News You Can Use – COVID Vaccines for Toddlers, Privacy Invading Pixels and PBMs
By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick
Twitter: @drnic1
Host of Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist – #TheIncrementalist
This month’s episode of “News you can Use” on Healthcare NOW Radio features news from the month of June.
This month’s episode of News You Can Use for Jun 2022 with Craig Joseph, MD (@CraigJoseph) Chief Medical Officer at Nordic Consulting Partners features discussions on the recent approval for COVID19 vaccination for infants and younger children, the Facebook pixel privacy issue and a discussion on Pharmacy Benefit Managers and Cost Plus Drugs.
Episode NOW on Demand
First up Craig reviews the recent news on COVID19 vaccination availability expanded now to children 6 months and up that was recently approved for children 6 months and up by the FDA. While this group has a lower than average incidence of severe disease they still do get COVID and we do see long-term effects and we both agree this is welcome news for any parent with children under the age of 5.
In privacy-related news tracking capabilities on healthcare websites that a recent investigative piece exposed is offering up far more information about individual patients and people visiting the website than anyone might expect. Many of the sites did respond by pulling the tracking code and promising investigation but many still remain and as we discuss this extends well beyond tracking on websites to extend to the information you type using forms that store everything you type, even if you delete it.
We close with a discussion on Mark Cuban’s CostPlus online pharmacy offering that is break-in through current systems to offer drugs at greatly reduced rates and deliver great customer service as well. They are attacking the Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBM), a concept that was originally designed to bring buying power to reduce the cost of drugs but has gotten wrapped up in a house of smoke and mirrors and rebates that are opaque and remain protected under regulations that have a moratorium on implementation of any rules relating to eliminating the anti-kickback statute safe harbor protection for prescription drug rebates till January 2026.
You can read more about the series here and the concept of keeping up with innovating in healthcare. Please send me your suggestions on topics you’d like to see covered. You can reach out direct via the contact form on my website, send me a message on LinkedIn or on my Facebook page (DrNickvT), or on Twitter tagging me (@DrNic1) and #TheIncrementalist or you can click this link to generate a ready-made tweet to fill in.
About the Show
For years Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, has served as a voice on the impact of new technologies on healthcare, earning a reputation as a leading authority on where the future of medicine is going. Combining powers of observation and real world experience, Dr. Nick has seen many predictions come true and makes the case that innovations in healthcare can be accomplished incrementally, not just by moonshot events. Tune in to hear Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist and his guests discuss what the future of healthcare looks like, how we will get there, and what it will take to improve healthcare for all.
This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.
