The Biden administration on Tuesday unveiled the first 10 prescription medications for which the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will negotiate Medicare prices directly with drug companies. The effort is part of a new program that’s faced pushback and legal challenges from the pharmaceutical industry.

The drugs selected for the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program—created as part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act—span treatments for diabetes, Crohn’s disease, cancer, and chronic heart failure.

Negotiations with drug companies are expected to begin later this year, and negotiated prices should take effect in 2026—though legal challenges from PhRMA and others in the industry could affect that timeline.

Keep reading here.—SY

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The demand for more convenient access to outpatient care continues to rise.

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A class of drugs that skyrocketed in popularity due to promising reports of weight loss is posing challenges for employers, who are grappling with if, and how, to cover them in their health plans.

The drugs, known as glucagon-like peptide 1s, or GLP-1s, are commonly prescribed to treat Type 2 diabetes, but have proven effective at boosting weight loss in nondiabetic people, too.

The weight loss effects have piqued the interest of many consumers in the US, where an estimated 42% of adults have obesity.

A recent survey of adults with obesity found that 44% of respondents would switch jobs to gain coverage for obesity treatment. In addition to attracting talent, funding obesity treatment has the potential to help employers save costs in the long run, given obesity has been linked to a number of other conditions. The catch for benefits leaders, though, is these drugs are expensive—so much so that a few large employers, including the healthcare company Ascension, recently dropped Wegovy, a GLP-1 approved for weight loss, from their health plans.

Keep reading at HR Brew.—CV

On Fridays, we schedule our rounds with Healthcare Brew readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

This week’s Making Rounds spotlights Sarah Watters, a behavioral scientist for Wellth, a technology platform that works with health plans to improve patient outcomes and treatment adherence.

Watters offered insight on how certain incentives or financial rewards can help change patient behaviors, and why some insurers have embraced Wellth’s app.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Tell me more about Wellth and your work there.

We partner with insurance providers as well as actual providers—integrated delivery networks and things like that. We work with some of their more complex populations that have multiple chronic conditions, who are really struggling to take their medication or really to do any kind of positive health behaviors. We work largely in Medicare Advantage, but also with a number of Medicaid populations and also some commercial populations.

Keep reading here.—SY

Today’s top healthcare reads.

Stat: Just 41% of healthcare dollars went through a value-based care model in 2020, according to the most recent data. (Healthcare Brew)

Quote: “It shouldn’t be this hard for a widow to figure out what the medical bills were.”—Erin Duffy, a research scientist at the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, on a hospital trying to collect more money a year after a bill had been settled (KFF Health News)

Read: A toddler is still receiving care five days a week after she was shot in the head days before her first birthday. (the New York Times)

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Looking to make your next career move? We’ve partnered with iHire and their network of healthcare-specific communities—like iHireNursing, iHirePharmacy, and iHireMentalHealth—to help you find your next rewarding role. Check out open positions for:

• Psychologists
• Healthcare managers
• Research associates