Medicare Drug Price Negotiations: The First Round is Almost Over

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The Medicare drug price negotiations of the Biden administration are almost complete, with two significant deadlines imminent.

Medicare has been granted the authority to negotiate drug prices directly with manufacturers by President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act, a move aimed at making costly medications more affordable for seniors. However, the pharmaceutical industry contends that this move poses a threat to their revenue, profits, and drug innovation.

Since February, the government and manufacturers have been discussing the prices of 10 medications, including diabetes treatments from , Boehringer Ingelheim, and blood thinners from , among others, which were initially offered by Medicare in February.

The official end of the negotiation period is next Thursday, and Medicare will release the final agreed-upon prices for medications by the start of September, although the specific date is yet to be determined.

Those prices will go into effect in 2026.

The government and drugmakers have kept quiet about the negotiations, but companies have stated that they have taken into account any effects from the price talks in their long-term financial projections.

"Jennifer Taubert, J&J's worldwide chairman of innovative medicine, stated during an earnings call last week that the company has received the final numbers from the government but will not disclose them at this time. Although J&J is not aligned with the Inflation Reduction Act and the price-setting process, those numbers have been included in the guidance provided last year, which still looks good to the company today."

The lawsuits filed by Merck and against the negotiations are still pending in district courts. These cases overlap with the suits brought by AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, and J&J, which were rejected in recent months.

Starting in 2029, Medicare can negotiate prices for 20 drugs annually.

If elected, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the front-runner to replace Biden as the Democratic candidate for president, is likely to broaden the scope of negotiations.

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Latest in health-care technology

Abridge, Epic and Mayo Clinic are bringing generative AI to nurses

Artificial intelligence tools are coming to nurses.

On Tuesday, Epic Systems, Abridge, and Mayo Clinic declared the development of a new AI-powered tool to streamline some of the note-taking tasks that nurses are required to perform.

Nurses, like doctors, must complete a significant amount of administrative tasks, including paperwork, which contributes to high burnout in the healthcare field. At Mayo Clinic, which serves over 1.3 million patients annually, nurses find documentation to be a major challenge, according to Ryannon Frederick, the clinic's chief nursing officer.

According to Frederick, they are currently devoting a considerable amount of time to tasks that utilize their skills, but not to their full potential.

Frederick emphasized the importance of utilizing the skills, expertise, and intelligence of healthcare workers in the most effective ways for patient care.

Abridge, established in 2018, created an AI-powered documentation tool for physicians that has been implemented in various healthcare systems, including Sutter Health, Yale New Haven Health System, and Emory Healthcare. Physicians can use Abridge to document their conversations with patients and generate clinical notes and summaries.

Dr. Shiv Rao, CEO of Abridge, stated in March that the company is saving physicians up to three hours a day with their technology. The logical next step is to adapt the technology to provide similar benefits to nurses.

Rao stated in an interview with CNBC that while there is a public health emergency surrounding clinician burnout and staffing shortages, it is most acute on the nursing side.

Epic, a health-care software vendor that manages the medical records of over 305 million people worldwide, has been collaborating with Abridge on a new nursing tool for the past year through its "Workshop" program. Nuance Communications, Microsoft's AI documentation tool competitor, also participates in the program.

Mayo Clinic has tested Abridge's nursing tool in a simulation center, but it's still in the early stages. Frederick emphasized the importance of ensuring that the solution addresses the needs of her staff, so Mayo Clinic will continue to evaluate it before implementing it on a larger scale.

In the future, Abridge intends to expand its nursing documentation tool to other healthcare organizations.

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