Although preferred provider organizations (PPOs) sponsored by third parties are likely to offer benefits to society through increased competition, those sponsored by providers may generate a risk of anticompetitive collusion. Such cartellike collusion could result in price fixing, less aggressive utilization review, and restrictions on entry and innovation in the market. In this article, we provide guidance on the potential risks posed by provider-sponsored PPOs. We suggest that public policy should generally promote PPOs and remove regulatory barriers to their growth because of their cost containment potential. Policy design should, however, reflect an awareness of the potential anticompetitive outcomes of provider-sponsored PPOs and should promote antitrust oversight of their activities.
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JAMA Netw Open
January 2025
Department of Global Health, School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts.
Importance: Semaglutide, a novel glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist medication, was approved for weight management in individuals with obesity in June 2021. There is limited evidence on factors associated with uptake among individuals in this subgroup without diabetes.
Objective: To explore factors associated with semaglutide initiation among a population of commercially insured individuals with obesity but no diagnosed diabetes.
Cogn Sci
January 2025
Program in Cognitive Science and Department of Philosophy, Yale University.
People tend to show greater liking for expressions of sadness when these expressions are described as art. Why does this effect arise? One obvious hypothesis would be that describing something as art makes people more likely to regard it as fictional, and people prefer expressions of sadness that are not real. We contrast this obvious hypothesis with a hypothesis derived from the philosophical literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnal Chem
January 2025
School of Public Health, Hengyang Medical School, University of South China, Hengyang 421001, P. R. China.
Organophosphorus pesticides (OPs) are widely used in agricultural production, posing a great threat to human health and the environment. Given that different OPs present different toxicology and toxicities, identifying individual pesticide residues becomes important for assessing food safety and environmental implications. In this work, a kinetics difference-driven analyte hydrolysis strategy is proposed for the first time and validated to identify -nitrophenyl pesticides by developing an organophosphorus hydrolase-like nanozyme-coded sensor array.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Nurs Stud Adv
June 2025
Department of Neurology, Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University, Guizhou, , 56300, China.
Background: Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological conditions affecting women of reproductive age. Epilepsy management during pregnancy is a clinical conundrum, requiring a balance between seizure control and risk minimization for women with epilepsy, as well as for their fetuses.
Objective: In this review, we aimed to systematically search, evaluate, and summarize relevant evidence on perinatal fertility guidance for women with epilepsy to provide a basis for medical staff to offer comprehensive fertility counseling.
Front Immunol
January 2025
School of Public Health and Health Management, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, China.
Introduction: The high percentage of Omicron breakthrough infection in vaccinees is an emerging problem, of which we have a limited understanding of the phenomenon.
Methods: We performed single-cell transcriptome coupled with T-cell/B-cell receptor (TCR/BCR) sequencing in 15 peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples from Omicron infection and naïve with booster vaccination.
Results: We found that after breakthrough infection, multiple cell clusters showed activation of the type I IFN pathway and widespread expression of Interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs); T and B lymphocytes exhibited antiviral and proinflammatory-related differentiation features with pseudo-time trajectories; and large TCR clonal expansions were concentrated in effector CD8 T cells, and clonal expansions of BCRs showed a preference for IGHV3.
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