20 Years of Thought Leadership
With more than 20 years of thought leadership in healthcare, Saira’s blog offers insights into health policy legislation and regulation, health advocacy, trends in rare and ultra rare diseases, and more.
Check back for valuable posts.
President Trump signed an executive order last week to modernize kidney-disease treatment for the first time in decades, a move that could reduce spending and improve treatment for one of the country's most pervasive illnesses. Citing the many millions of Americans suffering chronic kidney disease and kidney failure, the EO required Medicare to test different payment models encouraging a range of options that will improve patients’ lives and maybe even save some money.
In these days of deeply divided government, partisanship and extreme politics, it seems remarkable that both houses and both parties came together just before the long weekend to release a drug pricing proposal…
Read MoreEvery little bit helps when it comes to Alzheimer’s research. I’m interested to see how FDA’s recent shift in how the agency will evaluate Alzheimer’s therapies will plays out. I’d also like to suggest another idea.
Read MoreICER is doing what they ALWAYS do. After putting their “ultra-rare” framework out for comments, they are just going ahead and applying it to Hemophilia A. Here’s a snippet from their draft scoping document:
“ICER has posted and asked for public comment on proposed changes to its value assessment..."
Read MoreI talk with young adults living with sickle cell disease and with parents caring for their children with sickle cell disease. They are in and out of hospitals, more encounters with the health care system than they can count or care to remember. So how is it that they go for years without anyone approaching them about a clinical trial? This is much more common than one would think.
Read MoreLatest Haystack Project effort: ICER’s proposed methodology for assessing value of ultra orphan drugs is dangerous for patients. Join us at HaystackProject.org and sign on to the ICER letter at the ACT NOW button.
Read MoreI was honored to speak at the Sickle Cell Consortium meeting in Atlanta this month. I spoke at length with several patients and they are rightly demanding change. I sense a more empowered tone to these voices than I have heard over the 5+ years I’ve been fortunate enough to work with this community. I want to add my voice to theirs, to the building chorus demanding change.
Read MoreCMS recognizes the unique needs of complex patients. Listening carefully to a client’s concerns, creating a policy-based solution and an “ask” that policymakers can achieve, and showing them why and how to do it is our specialty at Connect 4 Strategies!
Read MoreThe "rebate pumping" and "spread pricing" referenced in the article, "Rebates to pharmacy benefit managers are a hidden contributor to high drug prices," definitely deserves scrutiny as the author suggests.
Read MoreWhat if community and chain pharmacists created a well-advertised campaign with prominently displayed signage in every pharmacy asking “How Am I Doing?...
Read MoreThe heavy scrutiny by Congress, payers, and the media on drug price hikes may be having its intended impact – giving manufacturers pause with respect to the frequency and/or magnitude of price increases. There’s another effect that bears keeping in mind, on the wholesalers that have long operated with a margin-dependent business model that factors price increases into revenue projections
Read MoreI've just spent several days digesting CMS' Final Rule with Comment on MACRA. It may be a while longer before doctors can look up from their computer screens and really see the patients in front of them. I don't know about you, but my old physician looked at his computer screen, painfully pecking away at the keys, instead of looking at me.
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