Welcome to the TKG PACT Executive Briefing, where in 3-minutes we highlight healthcare’s critical market access issues, policies, challenges, or trends. This resource offers condensed, 3-minute episodes of market insights. Our passion is on achieving the Quintuple Aim of enhancing patient experience, improving population health, reducing costs, improving the work life of health care providers and staff., and enhancing health equity in all aspects of care delivery. I’m Dr. Warren Smedley, tha ...
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Send us a text Introduction to Targeted Therapies: CAR T-cell Therapy T-cell Transfer Therapy is a special type of immunotherapy that takes a person’s own T-cells (a type of immune cell), adds specific antigens to the T-cells that can identify the cancer cells, and puts them back into the person’s body. Cancer cells express unique antigens (signali…
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Send us a text Provider Insights on the Impact of 340B Pricing. We frequently get asked for insights on how the 340B Drug Pricing Program may... or may not... be impacting the prescribing choices of participating covered entities. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) administers this federal program which is intended to help safe…
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Send us a text Today’s topic is the The Federal NOPAIN Act. The Federal “Non-Opioids Prevent Addiction In the Nation Act” (or, the “NOPAIN Act”), Senate bill S.586, was signed into law in December 2022. It takes effect this coming January as part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 2025 OPPS proposed rule. The NOPAIN Act directs CMS t…
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Send us a text The High-Value Pharmacy Enterprise Framework. The High-Value Pharmacy Enterprise Framework is a collection of evidence-based and expert recommended best practices designed to enhance health system pharmacy operations by ensuring safe, effective, and patient-centered medication management throughout the health-system pharmacy enterpri…
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Send us a text Introduction to Targeted Therapies: Monoclonal Antibodies Targeted Therapy is the foundation of Precision Medicine. Targeted therapy is a type of personalized treatment that targets specific proteins that control how cells grow, divide, and spread. Antibodies are produced naturally by our body and help the immune system recognize cel…
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Send us a text All 50 states now allow pharmacists and physicians to enter into Collaborative Practice Agreements (CPAs) in which one or more pharmacists establish a formal relationship with a prescriber, in which the prescriber can delegate specific tasks to a pharmacist under negotiated conditions, which would not otherwise be permitted under the…
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Send us a text When a physician prescribes an expensive specialty medication for a patient, the traditional distribution process was for the provider to purchase the medication, administer it to the patient, and then bill the insurance company for the drug. This “buy-and-bill” process has been utilized for many years. In recent years, and to help c…
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Send us a text Laboratory Benefit Managers have emerged over the past decade to fill the need to manage complex and expensive laboratory testing for payers. They have become the new Precision Medicine Gatekeepers. Results from over 14 billion diagnostic tests are estimated to influence 70% of today’s clinical decisions. It’s estimated that there is…
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Send us a Text Message. The term therapeutic inertia describes the failure of health care providers to initiate or intensify therapy when it is clearly indicated by established guidelines. The term has largely been applied to the management of blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol, by primary care physicians who recognize the need for their …
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Send us a text Since 2016, 13 states have passed Drug Price Transparency Laws focused on enabling state policymakers to understand opaque drug pricing and payment systems to formulate policy solutions to high prices, while also creating the data infrastructure to realize those policy solutions. Most of these state programs require reporting from ma…
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Send us a text Today's topic is the CMS Prior Authorization Final Rule On January 17th, 2024, CMS published the CMS Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule, to improve the electronic exchange of health care data as well as to streamline prior authorization processes. This final rule also adds a new measure for merit-based incentive paym…
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Send us a text Today’s topic is the Federal No Surprises Act. The Federal No Surprises Act is intended to protect consumers from unexpected medical bills that occur when a patient unknowingly receives medical services from physicians and other providers who are outside of their health insurance network; in other words, healthcare providers who are …
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Send us a text Welcome to our new and revised market insights podcast format, where we have renamed our program the TKG PACT Executive Briefing. The new format will be condensed into 3-minute episodes of market insights, where we highlight one of healthcare’s critical market access issues, policies, challenges, or trends. We hope you enjoy this new…
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Send us a text Telehealth Policy Gaps: Challenges with Remote Prescribing On May 11th, the Public Health Emergency (PHE) and some of the provisions that supported the explosive growth of telehealth, will expire, leaving telehealth providers scrambling to address some of the challenges of proving remote care. My special guest in this episode is Dori…
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Send us a text Circling the Wagons… to Solve Real Problems in Neurology It is estimated that globally, one in six people are affected by a health issue that includes some form of a neurological disorder. Within the United States, as many as 100 million people are having some kind of an issue related to a neurological disorder. Add to that the explo…
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Send us a text "Period Poverty"... a Taboo Topic? Unfortunately, there are some issues in healthcare that seem to get ignored, or simply don’t get discussed appropriately, and today’s topic is one of these challenging issues. In many circles, menstruation is a topic that is difficult to discuss openly, which complicates the challenges of period pov…
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Send us a text NCCN Policy & Advocacy Priorities Supporting high quality cancer care through the NCCN Guidelines is a strategic pillar for the NCCN. Alyssa Schatz is the Senior Director of Policy & Advocacy at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. She shares the current strategic priorities for her team in this week’s episode.…
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Send us a Text Message. Musical Chairs... Improving Infusion Therapy “Musical Chairs”… how are we managing infusion center operations amid the financial and staffing woes of a healthcare system exhausted from nearly 3 years of a roller coaster ride due to the pandemic? Our guests for this episode are Christine Mann, Chief Operating Officer and Dire…
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Send us a text Who trains surgeons what medications to prescribe? We don't often think about surgeons as being significant prescribers of medications, but they actually prescribe a lot of medications and help patients manage their medications, as they prepare for and recover from a surgical procedure. And in today's world of team based care, the su…
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Send us a text Impact of Operating Room Shut Downs Due to Staffing Shortages A recent article in the Boston Globe raised a red alert on hospital operating rooms being temporarily closed due to staffing shortages and other pandemic related challenges. In the article, Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of UMass Memorial Health, reported that, “… closing ORs is a …
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Send us a text Advancing Health Equity: Individual Point of Care Solutions Health equity is a complex issue, with a broad range of governmental, social service, and health care stakeholders who are wrestling with these issues. My guests today are The Kinetix Group’s four summer interns. They’ve been researching the challenges of improving health eq…
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Send us a text Advancing Health Equity: How are we doing? Health equity is a complex issue, with a broad range of governmental, social service, and health care stakeholders who are wrestling with these issues. My guests today are The Kinetix Group’s four summer interns. They’ve been researching the challenges of improving health equity and how each…
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Send us a text Advancing Health Equity: Using Data and Technology to Improve Outcomes. Health equity is a complex issue, with a broad range of governmental, social service, and health care stakeholders who are wrestling with these issues. My guests today are The Kinetix Group’s four summer interns. They’ve been researching the challenges of improvi…
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Send us a Text Message. Are Staffing Shortages Increasing Adverse Events? In March, The Advisory Board reported on the Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2022 according to ECRI, a 60-year-old nonprofit committed to the safety, efficacy, and cost-effectiveness of healthcare. ECRI publishes an annual report on safety concerns and this year, number on…
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Send us a text The Unintended Impact of Medicaid Expansion on Drug Prices Recently, we attended the Hematology Oncology Pharmacy Association’s annual meeting in Boston, where we presented research our team did on the effect of Medicaid Expansion on the price of drugs. We were curious about the impact of Medicaid Expansion on the price of drugs, whi…
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Send us a text Hospital Flash Report: January was Devastating for Finances In February, Kaufman Hall published their Hospital Flash report that showed hospital finances in major distress mode, following the end of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act or, CARES Act, funding. They reported that in January the median change in operat…
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Send us a text Genetic Testing Errors Negatively Impact Therapeutic Decision Making In this episode, we continue our discussion with Meagan Farmer and Danielle Bonadies as we discuss how the Top Errors in Genetic Testing may be negatively affecting therapeutic decision making. We also discuss ways that life science companies may be able to appropri…
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Send us a Text Message. Top Errors in Genetic Testing Negatively Impact Therapeutic Decision Making In today's episode we take a look at some of the significant challenges and errors we are seeing in the use of genetic and genomic testing, as they become mainstreamed into our clinical treatment protocols. Today we highlight the Top Errors in Geneti…
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Send us a text The Battle over Site-of-Care In this episode, my good friend and colleague, Ellen Feinstein, and I continue our debrief of the December Oncology Thought Leader’s panel meeting. Today, we focus on how our panel member’s are handling their battles over Site-of-Care, also some of their thoughts on care redesign, as well as looking at ca…
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Send us a text Critical Issues Facing Academic Cancer Centers A few weeks ago, we hosted our December meetings of the Oncology Thought Leaders Network, a part of TKG’s Networks of Excellence, where we discussed many of the critical issues in cancer center administration and care delivery. In this episode, we debrief our Thought Leader's discussion …
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Send us a text Genetic Testing – Leveraging Results to Identify Patients for New Therapies Today’s guest is Danielle Bonadies, a master’s trained genetic counselor and the Director of Genetics for My Gene Counsel. Danielle co-authored a poster presentation at the annual conference of the National Society of Genetic Counselors in September. The stud…
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Send us a text Genetic Testing – Managing Updates to Medical Management and Risk Profiling Today’s guest is Danielle Bonadies, a master’s trained genetic counselor and the Director of Genetics for My Gene Counsel. Danielle co-authored a poster presentation at the annual conference of the National Society of Genetic Counselors in September. The stud…
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Send us a text Melissa Childress, COO, Seidman Cancer Center - People & Process Driven Innovation In this episode of TKG’s Healthcare Insights, we will be highlighting the findings from our Oncology Thought Leaders meeting discussion on People and Process Driven Innovations coming out of the COVID pandemic, and exploring some of these issues in a l…
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Send us a text PART 2- Understanding the Complexities U.S. Drug Price Contracting There has been a ton of talk about the need for “transparent pricing,” as well as controlling the cost of drugs in the US. There seems to be a lot of finger pointing going on and it often looks like the providers and the manufacturers are taking a lot of the heat…!? O…
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Send us a text PART 1 - Understanding the Complexities of US Drug Price Contracting There has been a ton of talk about the need for “transparent pricing,” as well as controlling the cost of drugs in the US. There seems to be a lot of finger pointing going on and it often looks like the providers and the manufacturers are taking a lot of the heat…!?…
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Send us a text Part 2 - Technology Driven Innovations in Cancer Care; Amy Porter-Tacoronte, Duke Health In this episode of TKG’s Healthcare Insights, we continue our discussion, highlighting the findings from our Oncology Thought Leaders meeting discussion on Technology Driven Innovations coming out of the COVID pandemic, and exploring some of thes…
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Send us a text Part 1 - Technology Driven Innovations in Cancer Care; Amy Porter-Tacoronte, Duke Health In this episode of TKG’s Healthcare Insights, we highlight the findings from our Oncology Thought Leaders meeting discussion on Technology Driven Innovations coming out of the COVID pandemic, and exploring some of these issues in a little more de…
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Send us a text Advancing Patient-Centered Care – Part 2 Each summer, The Kinetix Group brings in several student interns, to explore the critical issues in healthcare, and learn alongside the TKG team. In this episode of TKG’s Healthcare Insights, we will be highlighting the findings from three of our summer intern’s research projects, focused on “…
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Send us a text Advancing Patient-Centered Care – Part 1 Each summer, The Kinetix Group brings in several student interns, to explore the critical issues in healthcare, and learn alongside the TKG team. In this episode of TKG’s Healthcare Insights, we will be highlighting the findings from three of our summer intern’s research projects, focused on “…
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Send us a text Oncology Thought Leaders Meeting Debrief – PART 3 A few weeks ago, we hosted our quarterly meeting of the Oncology Thought Leaders network, a part of TKG’s Networks of Excellence, where we discussed three critical issues in cancer center administration and care delivery. This is part 3 of a 3 Part discussion with our good friend, col…
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Send us a Text Message. Oncology Thought Leaders Meeting Debrief – PART 2 A few weeks ago, we hosted our quarterly meeting of the Oncology Thought Leaders network, a part of TKG’s Networks of Excellence, where we discussed three critical issues in cancer center administration and care delivery. This is part 2 of a 3 Part discussion with our good fr…
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Send us a text Oncology Thought Leaders Meeting Debrief – PART 1 A few weeks ago, we hosted our quarterly meeting of the Oncology Thought Leaders network, a part of TKG’s Networks of Excellence, where we discussed three critical issues in cancer center administration and care delivery. In this episode of TKG’s Healthcare Insights, we highlight the …
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Send us a text Supporting Precision Medicine with Genetic Testing PART 2: Exploring the Gaps in Patient Care In this episode, our guest, Meagan Farmer, a Master’s Trained Genetic Counselor, discusses several key gaps in patient care, including how well patients understand what they are consenting to when getting a test, the need for long term revie…
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Send us a text Supporting Precision Medicine with Genetic Testing PART 1: Understanding the Complexities of Genetic Testing In this episode, we take a look at the challenges of managing complex cancer diagnoses and treatments with the help of genetic and genomic testing. Meagan Farmer is a Master's trained Genetic Counselor and provides an overview…
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Send us a text Cardio-Oncology: Addressing Cardio-Toxicities from Cancer Treatment Cancer treatments have improved significantly over the last 40 years, with much improved outcomes for 5-year survival. In 1975, a cancer diagnosis came with a projected overall 5-year survival rate of less than a 50%. Today, the overall five-year survival rate is clo…
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Send us a text Part 2 of 3 - A Look at the Literature In today's episode, we continue a 3 part series, exploring how increasing financial toxicity in cancer care is impacting patients’ adherence to self-administered oral medications. Part 2 explores some of the literature that describes the financial impact of a cancer diagnosis on an individual an…
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Send us a text Part 1 of 3 - The Burden of Treatment In today's episode, we begin a 3 part series, exploring how increasing financial toxicity in cancer care is impacting patients’ adherence to self-administered oral medications. Part one defines the term Financial Toxicity and describes the "Total Burden of Treatment" as first reported by Carl May…
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Send us a text Part 2 - Dr. Marty Heslin talks about the New Normal for cancer care Dr. Marty Heslin is the new Cancer Center Director for the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute in Mobile, Alabama. He is a Surgical Oncologist, and has spent the last 25 years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System, where he most …
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Send us a text Part 1 - Dr. Marty Heslin talks about the New Normal for cancer care Dr. Marty Heslin is the new Cancer Center Director for the University of South Alabama Mitchell Cancer Institute in Mobile, Alabama. He is a Surgical Oncologist, and has spent the last 25 years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System, where he most …
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Send us a text Part 2 - Examining the Implications of Clinical Pathways on the Oncology Marketplace In Part 1 of this conversation, Ron talked about the increasing use of clinical treatment pathways by payers and providers to influence formulary decision making. In Part 2, we continue this discussion with Ron sharing his insights coming from their …
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