Publications by authors named "Hussain Lalani"
Article Synopsis
- Many patients in the US face challenges affording prescription drugs, leading to negative health effects, highlighting the need for healthcare providers to assist with these costs.
- The review covers 7 strategies to help with medication costs: co-payment cards, patient assistance programs, pharmacy coupons, direct-to-consumer pharmacies, public assistance programs, international online pharmacies, and real-time benefit tools, each with its own advantages and limitations.
- An algorithm was developed to guide clinicians in selecting the best options based on patients' health insurance and prescriptions, indicating that various solutions exist but reflect broader systemic issues in managing drug costs in the US.
Importance: Direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) are safe and highly effective for curing hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, but their high cost led certain state Medicaid programs to impose coverage restrictions. Since 2015, many of these restrictions have been lifted voluntarily in response to advocacy or because of litigation.
Objective: To estimate how the prescribing of DAAs to Medicaid patients changed after states eased access restrictions.
Background: Direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmacies sell generic prescription drugs, often at lower prices than traditional retail pharmacies; however, not all drugs are available, and prices vary.
Objective: To determine the availability and cost of generic drugs at DTC pharmacies.
Design: Cross-sectional study.
Article Synopsis
- The study aimed to explore the relationship between annual changes in prices for clinician-administered drugs and patient out-of-pocket costs from 2009 to 2018.
- Using data from a national claims database, researchers found that list prices of these drugs rose by an average of 4.4% per year, while out-of-pocket costs also increased significantly, with a notable rise in the percentage of patients facing any costs.
- However, the findings indicated that the changes in drug prices were not directly linked to changes in out-of-pocket expenses for individual drugs, suggesting that other factors like insurance policies and reimbursement rates played a role.
Article Synopsis
- In October 2022, the Biden administration instructed CMMI to create new payment models aimed at reducing prescription drug costs and improving access to innovative therapies, leading to the proposal of 3 new models for testing.
- An analysis was conducted on these models, with a focus on past CMMI projects relating to direct drug costs, revealing that nearly half of the previous models were not implemented due to various challenges, and none met the criteria for broader application.
- Recommendations for future CMMI initiatives include fostering voluntary participation when possible, using mandatory models when necessary, keeping geographic scope realistic, and adhering to legal procedures to avoid complications and enhance effectiveness.
As the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) navigates the process of negotiating drug prices, it plans to compare the cost, safety, and effectiveness of each drug with its therapeutic alternatives. How CMS selects therapeutic alternatives is a consequential decision, and there remains uncertainty about their methodology. To understand the challenges CMS will face in selecting therapeutic alternatives, we developed a methodology that leverages clinical guidelines by US medical professional associations to identify potential therapeutic alternatives for etanercept, one of the first 10 drugs selected for Medicare price negotiation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe rapid spread of medical rumors and false or misleading information on social media during times of uncertainty is a vexing challenge that threatens public health. Understanding the information ecosystem, social media networks, and the scope of incentives that drive users and social media platforms can provide critical insights for strong coordination between stakeholders and funders to address this challenge. The COVID-19 pandemic created an opportunity to demonstrate the role of media monitoring and counter-messaging efforts in responding to dangerous medical rumors, misinformation, and disinformation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To estimate US public investment in the development of mRNA covid-19 vaccines.
Design: Retrospective cohort study.
Setting: Publicly funded science from January 1985 to March 2022.
Introduction Hemodialysis (HD) is a significant contributor to Medicare spending. Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is a lower-cost dialysis modality with non-inferior clinical outcomes. Recent initiatives at the federal level have emphasized shifting dialysis from in-center to home modalities, namely, PD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The Affordable Care Act expanded Medicaid eligibility allowing low-income individuals greater access to health care. However, the uptake of state Medicaid expansion has been variable. It remains unclear how the Medicaid expansion was associated with the temporal trends in use of evidence-based cardiovascular drugs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis cohort study investigates physician voter participation, voter registration, and voter turnout from 2006 through 2018 in 3 states with the largest number of physicians.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C)-lowering therapies are a cornerstone of prevention in atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. With the introduction of generic formulations and the release of new therapies, including proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors, contemporary Medicare utilization of these therapies remains unknown.
Objective: To determine trends in utilization and spending on brand-name and generic LDL-C-lowering therapies and to estimate potential savings if all Medicare beneficiaries were switched to available therapeutically equivalent generic formulations.