Report

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to negotiate prices directly with participating manufacturers for selected drugs that are high expenditure, single source drugs without generic or biosimilar competition.

The market for antimicrobial (AM) drugs is unique in that it is associated with a positive externality (public health) as well as a negative externality (antimicrobial resistance, or AMR) (Mossialos, et al., 2010). AMR occurs when microbes change over time and no longer respond to available medicine.

It is well known that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) creates a substantial and ongoing public health and economic burden and understanding the size and nature of this burden is important for the ability to respond to the threat of AMR. However, estimating or projecting that burden within the U.S.

In 2017, at least 2.8 million people in the U.S. acquired serious infections with bacteria that are resistant to one or more antimicrobial drugs and 35,000 have died as a result. Resistance to antimicrobials is viewed as a global threat with antimicrobial drug use in human and animal health driving resistance.

Introduction

This report and dataset inventory identifies individual-level measures for conducting patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) relevant to adults with disabilities, aged 18–64 years.

Pathogens that have evolved to be resistant to the drugs currently used to treat infections are an ongoing threat to public health, animal health, food production, and national security. Globally, a recent analysis estimated that 1.2 million deaths were caused by antibiotic-resistant (AR) bacteria in 2019, making this threat a leading cause of death for people of all ages worldwide.

This research report updates prior reports on Medicare FFS telehealth trends during the COVID-19 public health emergency with data through end of 2021, by beneficiary characteristics, visit specialty and geography including by state. Medicare telehealth flexibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic continued to encourage use of telehealth among Medicare beneficiaries in 2021.

ASPE contracted with RAND Health Care to catalogue and assess state changes to Medicaid telehealth policies during the COVID-19 PHE through May 2022 and identify the driving circumstances, motivations, and evidence supporting telehealth policy decisions during the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE).

This first report focuses largely on establishing a baseline and a framework for further evaluation.