Impact of State Telehealth Parity Laws for Private Payers on Hypertension Medication Adherence Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Telehealth has emerged as an effective tool for managing common chronic conditions such as hypertension, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the impact of state telehealth payment and coverage parity laws on hypertension medication adherence remains uncertain. METHODS: Data from the 2016 to 2021 Merative MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database were used to construct the study cohort, which included nonpregnant individuals aged 25 to 64 years with hypertension. We coded telehealth parity laws related to hypertension management in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia, distinguishing between payment and coverage parity laws. The primary outcomes were measures of antihypertension medication adherence: the average medication possession ratio; medication adherence (medication possession ratio ≥80%); and average number of days of drug supply. We used a generalized difference-in-differences design to examine the impact of these laws. RESULTS: Among 353 220 individuals (mean [SD] age, 49.5 (7.1) years; female, 45.55%), states with payment parity laws were significantly linked to increased average medication possession ratio by 0.43 percentage point (95% CI, 0.07-0.79), and an increase of 0.46 percentage point (95% CI, 0.06-0.92) in the probability of medication adherence. Payment parity laws also led to an average increase of 2.14 days (95% CI, 0.11-4.17) in prescription supply, after controlling for state-fixed effects, year-fixed effects, individual sociodemographic characteristics and state time-varying covariates including unemployment rates, gross domestic product per capita, and poverty rates. In contrast, coverage parity laws were associated with a 2.13-day increase (95% CI, 0.19-4.07) in days of prescription supply but did not significantly increase the average medication possession ratio or probability of medication adherence. CONCLUSIONS: State telehealth payment parity laws were significantly associated with greater medication adherence, whereas coverage parity laws were not. With the increasing adoption of telehealth parity laws across states, these findings may support policymakers in understanding potential implications on management of hypertension.

Association of Economic Policies With Hypertension Management and Control: A Systematic Review.

Importance: Economic policies have the potential to impact management and control of hypertension. Objectives: To review the evidence on the association between economic policies and hypertension management and control among adults with hypertension in the US. Evidence Review: A search was carried out of PubMed/MEDLINE, Cochrane Library, Embase, PsycINFO, CINAHL, EconLit, Sociological Abstracts, and Scopus from January 1, 2000, through November 1, 2023. Included were randomized clinical trials, difference-in-differences, and interrupted time series studies that evaluated the association of economic policies with hypertension management. Economic policies were grouped into 3 categories: insurance coverage expansion such as Medicaid expansion, cost sharing in health care such as increased drug copayments, and financial incentives for quality such as pay-for-performance. Antihypertensive treatment was measured as taking antihypertensive medications or medication adherence among those who have a hypertension diagnosis; and hypertension control, measured as blood pressure (BP) lower than  140/90 mm Hg or a reduction in BP. Evidence was extracted and synthesized through dual review of titles, abstracts, full-text articles, study quality, and policy effects. Findings: In total, 31 articles were included. None of the studies examined economic policies outside of the health care system. Of these, 16 (52%) assessed policies for insurance coverage expansion, 8 (26%) evaluated policies related to patient cost sharing for prescription drugs, and 7 (22%) evaluated financial incentive programs for improving health care quality. Of the 16 studies that evaluated coverage expansion policies, all but 1 found that policies such as Medicare Part D and Medicaid expansion were associated with significant improvement in antihypertensive treatment and BP control. Among the 8 studies that examined patient cost sharing, 4 found that measures such as prior authorization and increased copayments were associated with decreased adherence to antihypertensive medication. Finally, all 7 studies evaluating financial incentives aimed at improving quality found that they were associated with improved antihypertensive treatment and BP control. Overall, most studies had a moderate or low risk of bias in their policy evaluation. Conclusions and Relevance: The findings of this systematic review suggest that economic policies aimed at expanding insurance coverage or improving health care quality successfully improved medication use and BP control among US adults with hypertension. Future research is needed to investigate the potential effects of non-health care economic policies on hypertension control.

Policy implementation strategies to address rural disparities in access to care for stroke patients.

Context: Stroke systems of care (SSOC) promote access to stroke prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation and ensure patients receive evidence-based treatment. Stroke patients living in rural areas have disproportionately less access to emergency medical services (EMS). In the United States, rural counties have a 30% higher stroke mortality rate compared to urban counties. Many states have SSOC laws supported by evidence; however, there are knowledge gaps in how states implement these state laws to strengthen SSOC. Objective: This study identifies strategies and potential challenges to implementing state policy interventions that require or encourage evidence-supported pre-hospital interventions for stroke pre-notification, triage and transport, and inter-facility transfer of patients to the most appropriate stroke facility. Design: Researchers interviewed representatives engaged in implementing SSOC across six states. Informants (n = 34) included state public health agency staff and other public health and clinical practitioners. Outcomes: This study examined implementation of pre-hospital SSOCs policies in terms of (1) development roles, processes, facilitators, and barriers; (2) implementation partners, challenges, and solutions; (3) EMS system structure, protocols, communication, and supervision; and (4) program improvement, outcomes, and sustainability. Results: Challenges included unequal resource allocation and EMS and hospital services coverage, particularly in rural settings, lack of stroke registry usage, insufficient technologies, inconsistent use of standardized tools and protocols, collaboration gaps across SSOC, and lack of EMS stroke training. Strategies included addressing scarce resources, services, and facilities; disseminating, training on, and implementing standardized statewide SSOC protocols and tools; and utilizing SSOC quality and performance improvement systems and approaches. Conclusions: This paper identifies several strategies that can be incorporated to enhance the implementation of evidence-based stroke policies to improve access to timely stroke care for all patient populations, particularly those experiencing disparities in rural communities.

Impact of State Stroke Systems of Care Laws on Stroke Outcomes.

Since 2003, 38 US states and Washington, DC have adopted legislation and/or regulations to strengthen stroke systems of care (SSOCs). This study estimated the impact of SSOC laws on stroke outcomes. We used a coded legal dataset of 50 states and DC SSOC laws (years 2003-2018), national stroke accreditation information (years 1997-2018), data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (years 2012-2018), and National Vital Statistics System (years 1979-2019). We applied a natural experimental design paired with longitudinal modeling to estimate the impact of having one or more SSOC policies in effect on outcomes. On average, states with one or more SSOC policies in effect achieved better access to primary stroke centers (PSCs) than expected without SSOC policies (ranging from 2.7 to 8.0 percentage points (PP) higher), lower inpatient hospital costs (USD 610-1724 less per hospital stay), lower age-adjusted stroke mortality (1.0-1.6 fewer annual deaths per 100,000), a higher proportion of stroke patients with brain imaging results within 45 min of emergency department arrival (3.6-5.0 PP higher), and, in some states, lower in-hospital stroke mortality (5 fewer deaths per 1000). Findings were mixed for some outcomes and there was limited evidence of model fit for others. No effect was observed in racial and/or rural disparities in stroke mortality.

Lessons Learned from CDC's Global COVID-19 Early Warning and Response Surveillance System.

Early warning and response surveillance (EWARS) systems were widely used during the early COVID-19 response. Evaluating the effectiveness of EWARS systems is critical to ensuring global health security. We describe the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) global COVID-19 EWARS (CDC EWARS) system and the resources CDC used to gather, manage, and analyze publicly available data during the prepandemic period. We evaluated data quality and validity by measuring reporting completeness and compared these with data from Johns Hopkins University, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and indicator-based data from the World Health Organization. CDC EWARS was integral in guiding CDC's early COVID-19 response but was labor-intensive and became less informative as case-level data decreased and the pandemic evolved. However, CDC EWARS data were similar to those reported by other organizations, confirming the validity of each system and suggesting collaboration could improve EWARS systems during future pandemics.

Chronic Disease Management Service Opportunities for Community Pharmacists During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Health system disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic prompted public health professionals to reevaluate potential barriers and opportunities to community pharmacist provision of chronic disease management services and to identify opportunities for maximizing community pharmacists' impact. Researchers conducted semistructured interviews with representatives from chronic disease prevention and pharmacy practice and policy organizations to identify key themes across multiple interviews and novel responses of interest. Interviewees described a lack of payment models to support pharmacist-provided chronic disease management services but noted opportunities for community pharmacists to demonstrate their value in offering services they are uniquely positioned to provide and to implement better workflow solutions. Successfully demonstrating pharmacists' value and making the case for reimbursement from payors, as well as optimizing pharmacy workflow, are critical to maximizing pharmacists' impact in chronic disease prevention and management.

Differences in rapid increases in county-level COVID-19 incidence by implementation of statewide closures and mask mandates - United States, June 1-September 30, 2020.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Community mitigation strategies could help reduce COVID-19 incidence, but there are few studies that explore associations nationally and by urbanicity. In a national county-level analysis, we examined the probability of being identified as a county with rapidly increasing COVID-19 incidence (rapid riser identification) during the summer of 2020 by implementation of mitigation policies prior to the summer, overall and by urbanicity. METHODS: We analyzed county-level data on rapid riser identification during June 1-September 30, 2020 and statewide closures and statewide mask mandates starting March 19 (obtained from state government websites). Poisson regression models with robust standard error estimation were used to examine differences in the probability of rapid riser identification by implementation of mitigation policies (P-value< .05); associations were adjusted for county population size. RESULTS: Counties in states that closed for 0-59 days were more likely to become a rapid riser county than those that closed for >59 days, particularly in nonmetropolitan areas. The probability of becoming a rapid riser county was 43% lower among counties that had statewide mask mandates at reopening (adjusted prevalence ratio = 0.57; 95% confidence intervals = 0.51-0.63); when stratified by urbanicity, associations were more pronounced in nonmetropolitan areas. CONCLUSIONS: These results underscore the potential value of community mitigation strategies in limiting the COVID-19 spread, especially in nonmetropolitan areas.

Observations of the global epidemiology of COVID-19 from the prepandemic period using web-based surveillance: a cross-sectional analysis.

Background Scant data are available about global patterns of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread and global epidemiology of early confirmed cases of COVID-19 outside mainland China. We describe the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 and characteristics of COVID-19 cases and clusters before the characterisation of COVID-19 as a pandemic. METHODS: Cases of COVID-19 reported between Dec 31, 2019, and March 10, 2020 (ie, the prepandemic period), were identified daily from official websites, press releases, press conference transcripts, and social media feeds of national ministries of health or other government agencies. Case characteristics, travel history, and exposures to other cases were abstracted. Countries with at least one case were classified as affected. Early cases were defined as those among the first 100 cases reported from each country. Later cases were defined as those after the first 100 cases. We analysed reported travel to affected countries among the first case reported from each country outside mainland China, demographic and exposure characteristics among cases with age or sex information, and cluster frequencies and sizes by transmission settings. FINDINGS: Among the first case reported from each of 99 affected countries outside of mainland China, 75 (76%) had recent travel to affected countries; 60 (61%) had travelled to China, Italy, or Iran. Among 1200 cases with age or sex information, 874 (73%) were early cases. Among 762 early cases with age information, the median age was 51 years (IQR 35-63); 25 (3%) of 762 early cases occurred in children younger than 18 years. Overall, 21 (2%) of 1200 cases were in health-care workers and none were in pregnant women. 101 clusters were identified, of which the most commonly identified transmission setting was households (76 [75%]; mean 2·6 cases per cluster [range 2-7]), followed by non-health-care occupational settings (14 [14%]; mean 4·3 cases per cluster [2-14]), and community gatherings (11 [11%]; mean 14·2 cases per cluster [4-36]). INTERPRETATION: Cases with travel links to China, Italy, or Iran accounted for almost two-thirds of the first reported COVID-19 cases from affected countries. Among cases with age information available, most were among adults aged 18 years and older. Although there were many clusters of household transmission among early cases, clusters in occupational or community settings tended to be larger, supporting a possible role for physical distancing to slow the progression of SARS-CoV-2 spread. FUNDING: None.