Month: October 2021

Kansas defends its decision to redact whole pages of a $100,000 drug spending report

by Celia Llopis-Jepsen, Kansas News Service

Law professors who reviewed the redacted content for the Kansas News Service struggled to understand why the state would consider it legal to black out the information.

A state agency is defending its blacking out of much of a report commissioned with tax dollars. It says it was accommodating a contractor that argued the redactions were needed to protect trade secrets.

The report is an audit of prescription drug spending for state employees, their families and retirees. When the Kansas News Service asked for a copy, the state provided a heavily redacted version.

That decision came under fire on Monday. Some members of the seven-person board that oversees the state health insurance plan questioned why details of the audit should be kept from public view.

“That seems crazy to me,” Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt said. “It doesn’t seem right.”

Another member of the panel noted that tax dollars paid for the audit.

“So going forward,” state employee Rebekah Gaston said, “are there ways that we can make this more transparent?”

Law professors who reviewed the redactions for the Kansas News Service struggled to understand why the state would consider it legal to shield the information. The state said it was protecting trade secrets.

But many of the blacked-out details — such as the number of prescriptions the plan covered in 2019 — are available in other public documents, including on the state’s own website. (The Kansas News Service was able to view some of the obscured content because the redactions were done incorrectly and the text beneath the black boxes remained accessible.)

Officials at the Kansas Department of Administration said they had followed standard procedures.

But they also shifted some of the responsibility onto the authors of the $100,000 report, a private auditing firm called PillarRx.

PillarRx considered its report confidential, a lawyer for the Department of Administration said. The department gave the firm the option of redacting it, and the firm did so.

So PillarRx sent a redacted version to the department, but the department felt the redactions went too far, said John Yeary, the Kansas Department of Administration’s chief counsel.

“So we pushed back,” he said. “And they came back with (a new version that) was ultimately provided” to the Kansas News Service.

In that version, large swaths and even whole pages of the report on $160 million in state spending on medications remain blacked out.

Schmidt took issue with the department’s explanation.

“We just can’t take (PillarRx’s) word for it when they say that it is proprietary,” she said. “We have some due diligence as a state.”

The head of the Kansas Department of Administration, Secretary DeAngela Burns-Wallace, said her agency’s lawyers did just that. (She is also a member of the oversight board, the Health Care Commission.)

“The very first version that the company provided, the legal team went back and said, ‘No, we disagree. And we need you to take an additional look.’ And so what was finally released is actually a different version than the initial one. So they did do that due diligence. .
..
“We can agree to disagree on if they could have done more,” she said, “if you felt that something else should have been done.”

Schmidt asked Yeary, the department’s lawyer, if he stands by the redactions.

“I won’t say I completely 100% agree with PillarRx on what they view as a trade secret or proprietary and confidential,” he said. “I do feel like, that our approach in responding as an agency where there are interests on both sides was appropriate.”

PillarRx declined an interview request from the Kansas News Service to discuss any aspect of the audit and didn’t have a representative at Monday’s board meeting.

The audit was commissioned to check the work of CVS Health. CVS is the state’s pharmacy benefit manager, meaning it processes prescription drug claims.

Experts say the audit failed to answer key questions about whether CVS saves the state money or contributes to high drug costs.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen reports on consumer health for the Kansas News Service. You can follow her on Twitter @celia_LJ or email her at celia (at) kcur (dot) org.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
See more at https://www.kcur.org/news/2021-10-18/kansas-defends-its-decision-to-redact-whole-pages-of-a-100-000-drug-spending-report.

KCK student named to dean’s list

Lindsey Jones, a Kansas City, Kansas, student, has been named to Biola University’s dean’s list for academic excellence.

Jones, a philosophy major, was one of about 1,700 students who were named to the dean’s list for spring 2021. Students on the dean’s list have a GPA of 3.6 or higher while enrolled in 12 or more credits, and have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.2.

Biola, a Christian university, is located in La Mirada, California.

Kids ages 5 to 11 next in line for COVID-19 vaccines as White House rolls out plans

by Laura Olson, Kansas Reflector

Washington — Smaller needles. Redesigned shipments to ease the storage needs in pediatricians’ offices. And enough vials of the COVID-19 vaccine to inoculate the 28 million U.S. children between ages 5 and 11.


Those are among the plans announced by the White House on Wednesday as federal and state officials prepare for a regulatory decision to be made on the COVID-19 shot that Pfizer reformulated for younger children.


A long-awaited decision on a vaccine for that age group is expected in the coming weeks. A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is set to consider authorizing the shot on Oct. 26, and after the FDA’s green light, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then will issue its guidelines for use.


“We know millions of parents have been waiting for COVID-19 vaccine for kids in this age group,” said Jeff Zients, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, during a briefing Wednesday morning. “And should the FDA and CDC authorize the vaccine, we will be ready to get shots in arms.”


Making another age group eligible for vaccines could be significant in preventing another spike in infections this winter.


The rate of infections and deaths has been falling after a summer surge caused by the delta variant, but colder weather and the winter holidays will lead to more indoor gatherings, where the virus that causes COVID-19 can spread quickly.


“If we can get the overwhelming majority of those 28 million children vaccinated, I think that would play a major role in diminishing the spread of infection in the community,” said Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser.


Shipments to states


If the FDA authorizes Pfizer’s shot for kids, 15 million doses will begin to ship to states, so providers will be ready to launch the next phase of the vaccination campaign as soon as the CDC weighs in.


The doses for children between 5 and 11 will be different from the ones approved for those 12 and older.


Pfizer has sought authorization for that younger age group to receive one-third of the amount given to adults and teens, and the vials will have a different color cap to distinguish them from the adult version.


Instead of the larger shipments of the adult version that initially were sent out, spurring concerns about potentially wasted doses in areas with fewer residents or less demand, the cartons shipping to pediatricians will include just 10 vials with 10 doses each. Those doses can be stored for up to 10 weeks at standard refrigeration temperatures.


The shipments also will come with all the supplies needed to administer shots to kids, the Biden administration emphasized in a memo outlining its operational plans. That includes needles designed for smaller arms.


Once the shipments go out to states, the doses will be distributed to providers, including pediatricians, children’s hospitals, pharmacies, and community health centers.


Zients said officials are seeking to ensure parents and children can go to a trusted and familiar site to get their vaccine. More than 25,000 pediatric and primary care provider sites will provide vaccinations, he said.


The administration also is working with state and local officials to set up vaccination sites at schools, and with children’s hospitals and other sites to host clinics during evenings and on weekends to inoculate kids at times that don’t require missing work or school.


State reimbursements


States can receive reimbursement through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover their costs related to setting up vaccination sites, buying supplies, and conducting outreach campaigns.


The White House’s planning efforts also include ways to ensure parents are receiving scientifically sound information about the vaccines amid waves of misinformation, and to create forums for them to ask questions.


A third of parents, or 34%, say they will vaccinate their 5-to-11-year-old child “right away” once a vaccine is authorized for that age group, according to a September survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation.


Another third say they will “wait and see” how the vaccine is working, and one in four say they definitely won’t get their children in that age group vaccinated.


Kansas Reflector stories, www.kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2021/10/20/kids-ages-5-to-11-next-in-line-for-covid-19-vaccines-as-white-house-rolls-out-plans/