Everyone has undoubtedly heard plenty about Covid-19 over the past four years, but there’s one big question many people are still asking: What is long Covid?

Long Covid is an illness that develops after a person has been infected with SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid. An estimated 400 million people around the globe have been diagnosed with the condition since 2020 (a number that’s likely an undercount), according to a study published on August 9 in the journal Nature Medicine. The researchers also projected the disease will have a roughly $1 trillion annual economic impact globally due to the cost of treatment, financial burden on system supports such as disability benefits, and negative impact the disease has had on key labor market indicators like productivity.

In case you’re not sure what long Covid is, how it’s diagnosed and treated, or how long it lasts, Healthcare Brew has put together an explainer for you.

What is long Covid?

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, which advises the US government on science and technology issues, issued a definition of long Covid in June 2024 that has been adopted by organizations like the World Health Organization. It classifies the condition as “an infection-associated chronic condition that occurs after SARS-CoV-2 infection and is present for at least three months as a continuous, relapsing, and remitting, or progressive disease state that affects one or more organ systems.”

According to M. Aruna Lochan, a nurse practitioner at the Cleveland Clinic, the condition can come with a variety of symptoms that affect different parts of the body, including the heart, lungs, and brain.

Keep reading here.—MA

Did you know that 25% of all children’s asthma hospital visits occur in September? Between going back to school, an increase in viral illnesses, and ragweed pollen, hospitalizations for asthma peak about 18 days after Labor Day for school-age children.

Prepare your patients for the most asthmatic time of year by using ImmunoCAP™ Specific IgE tests. They help you optimize your respiratory allergy diagnosis while aiding patients in understanding their triggers.

And thanks to the Lab Ordering Guide, you can easily find the test codes for the respiratory allergen profiles from the labs that you already use. All you have to do is enter your zip code and choose the profile type you’re looking for.

Keep the Lab Ordering Guide in your back pocket and diagnose more confidently this asthma season.

A new survey suggests employers will spend nearly 8% more on healthcare costs in 2025—the highest amount in over a decade.

And no, it’s not just inflation doing the heavy lifting, according to the 2025 Employer Health Care Strategy Survey that nonprofit Business Group on Health released August 20 with polling results from 125 employers across various industries.

Drug spending, in particular, is at least partially to blame, the group said in a press release last Tuesday. Employers are seeing their budgets eaten up by pharmacy costs, which in 2023, accounted for 27% of healthcare spending, up from 21% in 2021.

The GLP-1 craze isn’t helping, either, per the release, with nearly 80% of employers seeing an uptick in interest for obesity and diabetes medications.

“It is therefore no surprise that 96% of employers expressed concern about the long-term cost implications of GLP-1s,” the group said.

Meanwhile, the survey named cancer as the No. 1 condition driving healthcare costs, followed by musculoskeletal conditions and, increasingly, cardiovascular conditions.

Keep reading here.—CC

While everyone has heard of the classic healthcare jobs like physician, nurse, or surgeon, one of the lesser-known jobs in the industry is patient advocate.

According to Nichole Davis, a board-certified patient advocate and founder of Wayfinder Patient Advocates, patient advocacy “is the act of keeping the patient front and center in their care.”

“It’s trying to make sure that the [health system] is the best-fitting, the most equitable, the most beneficial, and the most cost-effective,” Davis said. “It’s essentially just going to bat for the patient.”

Davis sat down with Healthcare Brew to offer a better understanding of patient advocacy, what it’s like to work in the field, and how it affects the broader healthcare system.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What roles could someone take up in the patient advocacy field?

Everybody that has a consciousness of patient impact or patient centricity can be a patient advocate in any healthcare role that they’re in. For example, you have financial patient advocates that may be employed by a hospital, and they help patients navigate the financial implications of their care. You can have a doctor that speaks up for a patient.

You could also be like me: I’m a private patient advocate, which means that I don’t have an affiliation to a particular hospital or insurance company or pharmaceutical company.

Keep reading here.—MA