September 17, 2021
In early September, HHS announced a move to control all dispensation of Monoclonal Antibody therapy deliveries to states after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recognized it as an effective treatment alternative to the vaccine and opened treatment centers throughout the state. Florida is expected to lose 6,000 doses per day.
Access Monoclonal antibody information specific to the Florida initiative here
According to the following article in the American Thinker, “Biden’s rationing is unrelated to supply and demand. Regeneron has said it will have no problem producing enough drugs to cover nationwide demand. The only reason to cut supplies of REGEN-COV to Republican states is to ensure that more residents of those states die, justifying Biden’s demand for mass vaccinations across America”.
ACCESS the full article on Biden administration attack on Red States
Access the article on expected regeneron cuts to Texas
Access the Politics of Covid article in “The Last Refuge” here
On September 3, 2021 Health and Human Services made a significant change to their website providing an update to Covid-19 Monoclonal (MAB) Ordering Process. HHS stated the changes were required due to the increased rates of Delta variant causing a surge in utilization. They stated further, the goal of the changes are to ensure the therapies remain available for patients and to ensure “OPTIMAL” and “EQUITABLE” use. The update included:
- Limiting Monoclonal Antibody immediate orders only to certain sites with HHS Protect accounts and those hospitals currently providing utilization reporting
- This effectively removed access to the MAB therapy option in a small percentage of US hospitals that do not provide utilization reports to HHS. Access the numbers of all non-reporting hospitals by state here that will now be denied access to MAB therapy.
- Of note, in larger states with large remote areas such as Alaska, there are only 16 hospitals. There are 14 reporting hospitals covering THOUSANDS of square miles, this does not appear to be an optimal and equitable option for the two non-reporting hospitals, the patients seeking care and 12.5% of the hospitals within that state.
- This appears to be an opportunity to coerce every hospital to report to HHS. The issue with reporting in smaller hospitals has always been the staffing/resources to gather/submit the data which is why they opt out of reporting.
- This has the potential to further exacerbate the decreased access to care for Americans that live in rural areas which has for years been an issue addressed repeatedly in every state.
- This effectively removed access to the MAB therapy option in a small percentage of US hospitals that do not provide utilization reports to HHS. Access the numbers of all non-reporting hospitals by state here that will now be denied access to MAB therapy.
- Reviewing all orders for alignment with utilization, currently estimated at 70% of orders
From the HHS Protect site you can also review and access the following information such as:
- Inpatient Bed usage for hospital utilization and hospital capacity status for all reporting hospitals registered with Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS). This dashboard reveals data regarding:
- # of Hospitals Reporting
- Total # of Inpatient Beds
- # of Inpatient Beds in Use
- # Inpatient Beds in Use for COVID-19 with both confirmed and suspected cases of COVID-19
- Therapeutics Distribution ‘displays locations that have received shipments of monoclonal antibody therapeutics under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) authority, within the past several weeks’.
- National Testing for ‘nationwide data on COVID-19 test results across three key reporting periods: the last 30 days, the last 60 days, and the entirety of the pandemic’.
The update goes on to state “this is a temporary change. We will continue to monitor product utilization rates, variant prevalence, and overall availability of monoclonal antibody therapeutics to determine when we will shift back to the normal direct ordering process”.
