An advisory committee at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently voted against fast-track approval for an experimental drug to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. You can watch the committee meeting, and learn more, in this post.
Category: Medicare
Is your doctor gaslighting you? Or just too busy to talk?
Medical gaslighting is the term used when patients feel their doctors dismiss their symptoms as minor or psychosomatic. Women complain doctors are prone to blame symptoms on such things as weight and mental health. Women presenting with symptoms of heart disease are twice as likely to have their medical condition dismissed as mental illness than men with similar symptoms.
The Mis-Match that Prevents Thousands of MDs from Working
Imagine spending eight years after high school studying for your dream career. You apply to every medical school you can think of. If you don’t get into a cheaper state school, you apply to more expensive private medical schools. Some aspiring physicians even apply to schools in other countries. When you finally graduate you must then apply for graduate medical education (GME) training programs, which are required before you can practice medicine in all 50 states.
When is an FDA-Approved Drug Not a Drug?
In 2018 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) suddenly removed Auryxia (ferric citrate) from the Medicare Part D drug formulary and began to require prior authorization for the few indications it would reimburse. CMS gave little information about the reversal but apparently made the decision because it views ferric citrate at a mineral product, like dietary supplements such as Vitamin C. Dietary supplements are not covered by Medicare except in a few cases.