Closer Look
Uber pushing insurers to cover free rides to prenatal appointments
For patients of the Community of Hope and Mary's Center clinics in Washington, D.C., getting to medical appointments can be a challenge — many live far from public transit or lack cars. That's why ride-sharing company Uber, which has for years been searching for a viable way into the $4 trillion health care market, swooped in to offer hundreds of pregnant patients in D.C. free rides to appointments in 2021 and 2022. Uber says patients who participated in the pilot were slightly more likely to get prenatal care, and it's shopping the data around to insurers in a bid to get them to pay for the service.
The company is "spending a lot of time talking with Medicaid plans about how to structure that [transportation] benefit design, and how to administer that benefit," its global head of health, Caitlin Donovan, told STAT's Mohana Ravindranath. "Existence of the benefit alone is not enough." Read more.
health
'Astonishing' study finds that Black people live longer in counties with more Black doctors Health equity experts have long emphasized the benefits of when Black patients are seen by Black physicians. And a new study finds that Black people in counties with more Black primary care physicians live longer — whether they actually see those doctors or not. The study, published in JAMA Network Open, is the first to link a higher prevalence of Black doctors to longer life expectancy and lower mortality in Black populations.
"That a single Black physician in a county can have an impact on an entire population's mortality, it's stunningly overwhelming," Monica Peek, a primary care physician and health equity researcher at UChicago Medicine, told STAT's Usha Lee McFarling. The study did not address why Black patients fare better, and it isn't a strict cause-and-effect. Still, "to see the impact at the population level is astonishing," Peek said. Read more.
infectious disease
CDC: Bird flu mutations not a cause for concern
Genetic sequence data from H5N1 bird flu viruses that infected a man in Chile shows the virus underwent a couple of changes that are thought to be signs of early adaptation to humans. But scientists from the CDC, who spotted the mutations in the virus' PB2 gene while analyzing the sequence on Friday, told STAT's Helen Branswell they are not overly concerned, noting there were no significant changes in the hemagglutinin, the protein that flu viruses use to attach to human cells they are infecting. Vivien Dugan, who heads CDC's flu division, said the changes may have occurred as the viruses replicated in the unnamed man.
Richard Webby, a flu expert at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, concurred with the CDC's assessment, saying these changes are ones that seem to be easy for H5 viruses to make, but they aren't enough to allow them to start spreading from person to person.
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