Health policy impacts everyone, but it can be hard to know what is important. If you can only read three things about health policy this week, I suggest...

The Top Three...

The New York Times: Addiction Treatment Eludes More Than Half Of Americans In Need Roughly three in 10 adults have been addicted to opioids or have a family member who has been, and less than half of those with a substance use disorder have received treatment, according to a new survey conducted by KFF, a health policy research group. The survey, which polled more than 1,300 adults in July, underscores the broad and often harmful influence of opioid addiction across the nation, which recorded around 110,000 fatal drug overdoses last year alone. (Weiland, 8/15)

Modern Healthcare: PBM Law In Oklahoma Is Unconstitutional, Federal Court Rules An Oklahoma law aiming to regulate pharmacy benefit managers’ retail networks and pharmacist contracts is unconstitutional, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled. The three-judge panel on Tuesday invalidated four provisions of an Oklahoma law targeting PBMs, third-party intermediaries that negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers. (Tepper, 8/16)

ProPublica: Fees For Electronic Payments Eat Into Health Care Budgets Such fees have become routine in American health care in recent years, according to an investigation by ProPublica published on Monday, and some medical clinics say they'll seek to pass those costs on to patients. Almost 60% of medical practices said they were compelled to pay fees for electronic payment at least some of the time, according to a 2021 survey. With more than $2 trillion a year of medical claims paid electronically, these fees likely add up to billions of dollars that could be spent on care but instead are going to insurers and middlemen. (Podkul, 8/15)

For a Deeper Dive...

Stat: Health CEOs Hauled In $4 Billion As Inflation Pinched Workers The health care industry didn’t just provide a safe haven for jittery stock investors in 2022, a year defined by inflation and higher interest rates. It also provided a stable stream of wealth for top executives, who collectively pocketed billions of dollars in what was otherwise a rough patch for the economy. (Herman, Parker, Feuerstein, Lawrence and Ravindranath, 8/17)

KFF Health News: Proposed Rule Would Make Hospital Prices Even More Transparent “How much is the ice cream?” A simple enough question, featured on a new TV and online advertisement, posed by a man who just wants something cold. A woman behind the counter responds with a smile: “Prices? No, we don’t have those anymore. We have estimates.” The satirical ad pretends to be a news report highlighting a “trend” in which more retail outlets take up “the hospital pricing method”: substituting estimates for actual prices for the cost of meals, merchandise on store shelves, and clothing. The scene ends with a partially deleted expletive from the ice cream-seeking man. (Appleby, 8/14)

The Washington Post: The Real Reason The Highest-Paid Doctors Are In The Dakotas The best-paid doctors in America work in the Dakotas, where they averaged $524,000 (South) and $468,000 (North) in 2017 in their prime earning years, including business income and capital gains. That’s well above the already astonishing $405,000 the average U.S. doctor made in the prime earning years, defined here as 40 to 55. (Van Dam, 8/11)

NBC News: Emergency Room Doctors Beg For Help Treating Children With Mental Health Illnesses Three influential groups of pediatricians and emergency medicine providers are pleading for more support and resources as the number of children and teenagers with mental health concerns overwhelm emergency departments nationwide. "The scope of this problem is really great," said Dr. Mohsen Saidinejad, a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. "But our ability to solve it is not there." Saidinejad is the lead author of a joint policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Emergency Physicians and the Emergency Nurses Association released Wednesday. (Edwards, 8/16)

Modern Healthcare: The Joint Commission Acquires National Quality Forum The Joint Commission has acquired the National Quality Forum, with the goal of consolidating quality measures and integrating more industry voices into the development of standards. Putting the healthcare improvement organization under the umbrella of the commission should reduce the burden on health systems by eliminating unaligned, competing measures and creating more streamlined and consistent clinical performance measurement, according to the groups. (Devereaux, 8/16)

Modern Healthcare: Oregon Passes Nurse-Patient Ratio Law For Hospitals Oregon has become the fourth state to enact a law requiring nurse-to-patient ratios at hospitals, a move praised by labor groups and panned by health systems. Hospitals in the state will have until Sept. 1 to comply with certified nursing assistant ratios set by the bill signed Tuesday by Gov. Tina Kotek (D). Beginning in June 2025, the Oregon Health Authority will start enforcing other minimum nurse staffing requirements that vary by type of unit and patient acuity and take effect next year. (Devereaux, 8/17)

The New York Times: Opioid Settlement Money Is Being Spent On Police Cars And Overtime After years of litigation to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for the deadly abuse of prescription painkillers, payments from what could amount to more than $50 billion in court settlements have started to flow to states and communities to address the nation’s continuing opioid crisis. But though the payments come with stacks of guidance outlining core strategies for drug prevention and addiction treatment, the first wave of awards is setting off heated debates over the best use of the money, including the role that law enforcement should play in grappling with a public health disaster. (Hoffman, 8/14)

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A few years ago I started a weekly e-mail for friends and colleagues who want to keep up on major federal health policy developments but did not have time to plod through all the minutiae--they were busy doing important things like running organizations and taking care of patients! Much to my surprise, it became pretty popular. I have now converted to a weekly newsletter format so you can manage your own subscription preferences and forward to others that might be interested.

These summaries represent my judgement on health policy issues that may not on the front pages, but are relevant to clinicians, administrators, and educators. I monitor many news sources and clipping services to identify content for this newsletter and I try hard to be as factual, balanced, and non-partisan as possible. While the articles are written by others (with credit attributed), the choice of what to include is entirely mine. If you are interested in receiving a daily summary of health policy news, you might consider signing up for the KHN Morning Briefing. If you enjoy podcasts, I suggest What the Health? and Tradeoffs.

-Gregg S. Margolis, PhD