A group of U.S. senators sent letters to five telehealth companies that offer care through direct-to-consumer portals from pharmaceutical manufacturers Pfizer and Eli Lilly, interrogating their financial relationships, STAT tells us. The questions seek to determine whether contracts between pharma and telehealth companies could violate the federal anti-kickback statute. The lawmakers, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in October sent similar letters to Pfizer and Lilly demanding answers about their relationships with the telehealth prescribers, which patients can access through websites PfizerForAll and LillyDirect, which also offer patients the ability to fill prescriptions for their medications online. The questions to telehealth companies highlight the regulatory gray area created when virtual care providers market specific drugs. Pharmaceutical companies’ marketing is closely regulated, limiting the claims they can make about a medication’s safety and efficacy, and requiring disclosure of side effects and contraindications. Telehealth companies that prescribe a range of medications have not been held to the same standards.
The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services plans to terminate four demonstration projects at the end of 2025, closing out models affecting primary care, kidney care and healthcare payments in the state of Maryland, The Wall Street Journal says. The agency will also make changes to other projects, including dropping a planned initiative that would offer certain generic drugs to Medicare enrollees for $2. CMS said its planned terminations would save nearly $750 million, and an agency official said the projects would affect millions of patients. The projects were offered through the CMS Innovation Center, a special office that launches and tests new ideas in the agency’s programs, which include Medicare and Medicaid.