| | | | |  | | By Shawn Zeller, Carmen Paun, Daniel Payne, Ruth Reader and Erin Schumaker | | | | | 
Drugs like Ozempic help patients lose weight but are tough to stick with, a new study found. | David J. Phillip/AP | Most Americans who start using the new class of weight-loss drugs, such as Ozempic and Wegovy, aren’t sticking with them. That’s according to a new study from the research arm of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association of health insurers. How so? Nearly 6 in 10 people who start the drugs quit before they reach a “clinically meaningful” health benefit. The drugs, which have been used to treat diabetes for years, reduce appetite by mimicking the GLP-1 hormone released in the gastrointestinal tract when we eat. Twelve weeks of treatment is considered the optimum length of time to be considered clinically significant, the study found, as is losing 5 percent of body weight. Yet, nearly a third of patients quit within the first month. Why’s that? Though the drugs are expensive, cost wasn’t the issue. The study relied on data from 170,000 commercial health plan members with obesity drug coverage since the first FDA approval for a weight-loss GLP-1 in 2014. The study says side effects are a problem. Almost all people who start using a GLP-1 drug experience nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, though the side effects typically go away with time. “This study shows most people are unlikely to see lasting benefits,” said Dr. Razia Hashmi, vice president of clinical affairs at the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. “Unfortunately, weight loss isn’t as simple as filling a prescription.” Takeaway: The cost -benefit is something the Blue Cross Association is considering. Its president, Kim Keck, said, “If we don’t get it right, we will drive up costs for everyone with little to show for it.”
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Washington, D.C. | Shawn Zeller/POLITICO | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Drug dealers are posting photos of negative fentanyl test strips on social media to advertise their opioid supply as safe, NBC News reports. Customers should not trust that information, officials warn. Share any thoughts, news, tips and feedback with Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com, Daniel Payne at dpayne@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com or Erin Schumaker at eschumaker@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp.
| | |  | States that require care providers to report dementia diagnoses to state motor vehicle departments — an effort to keep unsafe drivers off the road — could spark unintended consequences, a recent study published in JAMA Network Open suggests. How so? Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Southern California found that clinicians in the four states requiring dementia diagnosis reporting — California, Delaware, Oregon and Pennsylvania — were 12 percent more likely to underdiagnose the condition. In the 14 states that require drivers to self-report if they’re diagnosed with dementia and in states without mandates, the probability of underdiagnosing was just under 8 percent. The results were based on modeling that includes Medicare claims on some 223,000 primary care clinicians. “If there is a policy that drives the dementia diagnosis out of the physician-patient conversation, you’re less likely to find these early cases,” said Soeren Mattke, one of the study authors and the director of the Brain Health Observatory at the USC Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research. That’s because physicians might be reluctant to ask about potential signs of dementia and patients might be reluctant to talk about it for fear of losing their license, Mattke told Carmen. Without early diagnosis, medications are less likely to be effective. Why it matters: The number of dementia cases is expected to rise to 14 million by 2060 from some 7 million now, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s unclear whether people with dementia in its early stages are less safe behind the wheel than those without it, Mattke said. Even so: Two researchers not involved with the study said in an accompanying commentary that research they’ve conducted showed that warning patients who may be unfit to drive because of dementia or other serious diseases led to a 45 percent reduction in the annual rate of crashes per 1,000 patients.
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Health systems are trying to figure out how much their staff needs to know about AI. | Adam Berry/Getty Images | The authors of the United States Medical Licensing Examination are considering whether to evaluate doctors’ understanding of artificial intelligence. How so? “It behooves us to ensure … trainees have a much better understanding of AI and what it can do and how it can be leveraged to provide optimal patient care,” Dr. Alex Mechaber, vice president of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination at the National Board of Medical Examiners, told Daniel. “We think about this all the time.” Why it matters: Health systems are likely to expect new doctors to have AI skills as a part of their patient care training. Even so: With AI tools for medicine rapidly changing, standards for what doctors should learn about the systems in their training might be a long way off. AI may take on another role in the meantime, Mechaber said: helping to create and grade exams. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
