Opioids

CMS will give states more leeway to cover inpatient treatment for serious mental illnesses, just as the agency has been doing for inpatient treatment of substance use disorders, HHS Secretary Alex Azar announced Tuesday (Nov. 13).

With Democrats taking control of the House, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) is highly expected to chair the powerful Energy & Commerce Committee, and, although he comes from a pharmaceutical-heavy district, he told Inside Health Policy prior to the election results that tackling high drug prices would be a top priority as would overseeing the administration's health care agenda.

With a Democratic takeover of the House, the powerful Energy & Commerce Committee will experience leadership and priority shifts. A former congressional aide told Inside Health Policy that Democrats may use the opportunity to push the Creating and Restoring Access to Equivalent Samples (CREATES) Act, seek funding options for opioid-related initiatives, focus more on cosmetics legislation and revisit laboratory-developed test (LDT) legislation.

FDA’s psychopharmacologic drugs and drug safety advisory committees, in a joint meeting on Thursday (Nov. 1). voted against approval of a proposed new opioid combination drug indicated to treat major depressive disorder.

CMS told states they do not need to defray the costs of new benefits that may be included in a revised essential health benefit (EHB) benchmark plan unless the coverage has been legislatively mandated, and encouraged states to implement revisions that would better address the opioid epidemic.

Two California men have pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud Affordable Care Act plans in at least 12 states by enrolling people in coverage and transporting them to expensive drug treatment facilities in California that paid referral and other fees, the Department of Justice announced.

FDA will ask two of its advisory committees to weigh in on expanding the availability of naloxone for use in the community during a two-day meeting Dec. 17 and 18, the agency announced Tuesday (Oct. 23).

HHS Secretary Alex Azar touted the agency's Regulatory Sprint to Coordinated Care on Wednesday (Oct. 17), including upcoming work on 42 CFR Part 2 privacy requirements, and the administration’s fall unified agenda indicates the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration intends to publish a proposed rule on the privacy requirements next year.

FDA plans to “very quickly” begin implementing requirements that opioid makers package their drugs in unit-dose packaging to provide for shorter duration prescriptions, such as one or two days, agency commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Thursday (Oct. 18).