Payers should look at the looming interoperability mandate as a chance to gain a lasting advantage over their competitors, according to two health care information technology (IT) experts.

In a March 26 webinar hosted by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), IBM Vice President Michael Curry of Watson Health and Jeff Rivkin, research director for payer IT strategies at IDC Insights, said payers should do more than meet the minimum interoperability standards, AIS Health reported.

As a new bill introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) indicates, Congress is once again looking seriously at tackling drug pricing reform. D.C. insiders say that Democrats could pursue big changes to PBM regulation and Medicare's ability to negotiate drug prices, AIS Health reported.

Also, Congress could repeal the Trump administration’s so-called "rebate rule," which would have removed safe-harbor protections under the federal anti-kickback statute for rebates paid by drug manufacturers to PBMs and Medicare Part D plans.

A new study published in Health Affairs found that spending in the orphan drug category is overwhelmingly concentrated on so-called partial orphan drugs, which have both orphan and nonorphan indications. The study affirms growing concerns across the health care industry that drugmakers are misusing the orphan drug designation and introducing unwarranted cost into the drug channel, AIS Health reported.

The Orphan Drug Act of 1983 covers diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S., plus diseases that affect more than 200,000 people but are so expensive to treat that companies developing and marketing such therapies are not expected to recover their costs. With the designation, the FDA grants drugmakers expanded intellectual property and commercial rights intended to offset these steep costs.

Health insurers have begun to consolidate their position in the telehealth market, as indicated by a recent move by Cigna Corp. to acquire MDLive Inc. Meanwhile, lawmakers are beginning to consider the future of telehealth regulation and payment, AIS Health reported.

Cigna's Evernorth health services arm announced on Feb. 26 that it had reached an agreement with MDLive to acquire the virtual care provider, according to MDLive's website. MDLive has been available in-network as a primary care option to all members of Cigna's commercial plans since January 2020.

With the Trump administration's rebate rule delayed and possibly slated for repeal by Democrats in Congress, major changes in how the PBM industry distributes rebate revenue will have to come from the private sector, AIS Health reported.

The Biden administration will suspend implementation until 2023 of the so-called "rebate rule," a Trump administration regulation that would have revamped the Medicare prescription drug rebate system, and DC insiders expect the regulation will be repealed by Congress before then. Meanwhile, a growing number of PBMs that deal in the commercial market have pitched plan sponsors on a 100% pass-through rebate structure, in which the PBM collects its compensation through a fee or surcharges rather than diverting a share of rebate revenue.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the managed care industry has wrestled with how to project utilization of normal care and assess the risk of funding care related to the virus. While insurers generally seem to be in good financial shape, experts say that plans face continuing uncertainty, AIS Health reported.

In the early days of 2021, the U.S. confronted a grim milestone when the tally of Americans who died from COVID-19 reached 400,000.