TGIF

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, who also is hearing the Aetna / CVS merger case, rejected today a legal challenge to a Trump Administration rule expanding the available length of coverage for short term health insurance coverage. The FEHBlog found the opinion to be quite convincing.  The plaintiffs plan to appeal. The FEHBlog is pleased with the outcome because it allows more consumer choice.

Fierce Healthcare reports that CVS Health "plans to start a clinical trial of its new home dialysis system." 

The clinical trial of the company's HemoCare Hemodialysis System for the administration of home hemodialysis will involve up to 70 patients at 10 sites, CVS said. Home hemodialysis helps facilitate longer, more frequent dialysis treatments compared to in-center treatments, according to the company.

Health Payer Intelligence brings us a discussion of CMS initiatives implementing the President's executive order on improving American kidney health.

The Boaston Globe reports that

A decade-old experiment to put a dent in Massachusetts health care costs by changing the way doctors are paid appears to be working — offering a potential strategy to combat one of the most vexing problems in today’s economy.

In a new study, researchers at Harvard Medical School found that a payment plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts that rewards doctors who control costs is linked to smaller increases in health care spending and better-quality care.

Blue Cross’s payment program gives doctors a fixed amount of money to take care of their patients. When doctors stay on budget and improve care, they can earn bonuses. If not, they can be penalized.

That's good news.

In other New England news, the Middletown (CT) News reports that

"Insurers that sell policies on Connecticut’s Affordable Care Act exchange, Access Heath CT, are seeking premium increases for their 2020 policies, basing their requests largely on a new federal tax that will be imposed next year."

This is not a new federal tax. It's a resurrected federal tax. The onerous health insurance tax created by the Affordable Care Act applied to insured plans, including most FEHB plans, from 2014 through 2016. Congress suspended the tax for 2017, permitted its resurrection for 2018, suspended it again for this year, and evidently plans to permit the tax to kick in again for next year. The Stop the HIT website has details. That's bad news.

CNBC reports on an interesting Amazon Pillpack controversy with the "players" in the drug supply chain.

According to two people familiar with the matter, PillPack was informed this week that it will soon be cut off from accessing that data via a third-party entity, ReMy Health — a move that could seriously complicate its business. Amazon is considering legal action against Surescripts to halt those efforts, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are confidential. One person told CNBC that PillPack has already sent a cease-and-desist letter to Surescripts.