A TikTok video spurs alarm about Medicare coverage for telehealth

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Final Thursday, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) posted a video on TikTok informing his 400,000 followers of “breaking information” that “the Trump administration introduced that Medicare will cease masking telehealth on April 1st,” and calling for opposition to “stand as much as these Medicare cuts.” Khanna has not beforehand been vocal on the problem of telehealth, regardless of his declaring that he’s “the Congressman from Silicon Valley.” The TikTok was so random it felt like an calculated transfer to spice up telehealth’s profile as a legislative precedence, take pictures at Donald Trump, or each.

And it took little or no time for outrage to construct on social media concerning the assertion that Trump was yanking away the telehealth protection for seniors. Democratic social gathering operatives ran with it, and behind the scenes, lobbyists who’ve been working for years to construct bipartisan consensus round telehealth, texted one another into the night and the subsequent morning, attempting to determine what precisely it was that Khanna knew that they didn’t.

The reply, in brief, is nothing. Medicare protection for telehealth is certainly ending April 1st as of proper now. As savvy Well being Tech readers know, this protection is in a interval of limbo. Throughout the pandemic, Congress briefly expanded the telehealth companies lined by Medicare, however the guidelines have been set to run out on the finish of final yr. A bipartisan push to increase the protection for 2 years made it into a big year-end price range compromise that was torpedoed on the eleventh hour in December by Trump and Elon Musk. Congress was pressured to cross a stop-gap invoice to fund the federal government via March fifteenth, and short-term extensions of the Medicare flexibilities rode together with it.

Insiders inform me that one other extension is probably going with no matter occurs with the price range, nevertheless, if lawmakers can solely agree on one other short-term funding deal, the telehealth extensions might solely be just a few months lengthy. As ever, price range negotiations are dicey, and vital provisions may be eliminated or altered on the final minute.

Regardless of there not likely being any information, by noon Friday, alarm within the digital well being neighborhood had reached such a degree that the American Telemedicine Affiliation was pressured to concern a press release to dispel “rumors… mistakenly claiming that telehealth companies is not going to be prolonged previous the March 31 deadline.”

The priority raised quietly amongst advocates is that telehealth would possibly develop into a partisan concern. The concept of finally making Medicare telehealth protection everlasting has the help of lawmakers from each events. For now.

It is sensible that most individuals don’t perceive the ins and outs of Medicare telehealth flexibilities and price range negotiations. And as one lobbyist put it to me, the confusion is an effective instance of how short-term insurance policies which are continually on the brink can create issues. Regardless of not mentioning extensions in any respect in his preliminary postings, presumably, Khanna was conscious of how this all works.

In a press release issued late Friday, Khanna continued his assault, blaming Musk and Trump for blocking the extension laws final yr, including, “Trump has not performed something to push Republicans to increase [telehealth].” Pushed on Monday as as to if he apprehensive he was making telehealth a partisan concern, he dug in additional, saying, “we should clearly be sure People know [Trump] and [Trump] alone is chargeable for eliminating the telehealth protection,” which once more, has not but been eradicated and appears prone to be prolonged.

With semaglutide scarcity over, Hims seems to be forward

On Friday, the Meals and Drug Administration introduced the semaglutide scarcity is over, making the Hims and Hers full-year 2024 earnings name on Monday one thing of a reckoning for an organization whose inventory worth has surged due to promoting compounded variations of the favored weight problems drug.

STAT’s Katie Palmer tells us that with the scarcity over, the corporate introduced it should cease promoting “important copies” of semaglutide in the identical doses provided by Novo Nordisk — however that dosages may nonetheless be altered to take care of uncomfortable side effects like nausea. Within the name, CEO Andrew Dudum leaned right into a broader imaginative and prescient for the corporate constructed on “hyper-personalized” care leveraging its latest acquisition of an at-home testing firm and a peptide facility. pull that off at scale? AI, in fact! AI to show these brand-new knowledge streams into algorithmic medicine ideas, and a full secure of AI brokers: “AI coaches, therapists, nutritionists and trainers, accessible for 24-7 on demand help,” Dudum mused.

Regardless of the semaglutide damper, Hims’ monetary efficiency continues to enhance. It reported $1.5 billion in 2024 income, up 69% over the yr earlier than, and $126 million in web revenue. Trying forward, the corporate projected not less than $2.3 billion in income in 2025.

FDA’s former digital well being chief heads to Oracle

In a local weather that’s more and more delicate to the revolving door between business and the Meals and Drug Administration, Troy Tazbaz, who lead FDA’s digital well being heart for 2 years, is heading to Oracle to be a senior vice chairman of information heart planning, in response to his LinkedIn profile. Tazbaz labored at Oracle for over 10 years earlier than becoming a member of FDA. It’s unclear if he’s going to be engaged on well being care in any respect at Oracle, however the firm has shut ties to the Trump administration. Personally, the job title offers me Stargate vibes.

Elsewhere, Patrizia Cavazzoni, who stepped down from her put up as the pinnacle of drug analysis at FDA is heading to Pfizer to be an government vice chairman and the drugmaker’s chief medical officer.

Watchdog flags rising price, sloth’s tempo of VA’s Oracle EHR rollout

Talking of Oracle, STAT’s Brittany Trang writes that he Division of Veterans Affairs’ adoption of Oracle’s digital well being is shaping as much as be a “Large Dig” of well being IT: An bold undertaking that’s overdue and over price range. A brand new Authorities Accountability Workplace report issued Friday requires a brand new price range estimate, saying that the unique $16.1 billion determine from 2019 doesn’t account for the total lifetime of the system or the delays in implementing this system. The report cites an impartial estimate pegging the associated fee at a whopping $49.8 billion.

The rollout has run into hiccups together with software program that’s inaccessible to blind staff and a few documented cases affected person hurt. It’s additionally been gradual. Simply earlier than Christmas, the VA introduced that the implementation will resume after a 2023 indefinite pause, deploying at 4 websites in Michigan in 2026. At that time, eight years into a ten yr contract, the brand new EHR might be reside at 10 places, with solely about 160 extra to go.

The report additionally cites complaints concerning the new software program. In a September 2024 survey, 75% of individuals disagreed or strongly disagreed that the EHR made them as environment friendly as doable, and other people the GAO interviewed largely stated that the system “usually decreased productiveness.”