Medical device fraud, Racism in Nursing, Abortion rights, Nuance’s AI scribe, and much more!

Happy Thursday! ?? Happy June! ?? Happy Pride Month!???????????

We have all the happys for you today. We also have a fun round-up of STAT stories from the week. Ryan Fitzgerald and Alexander Bois-Spinelli here with your latest edition of “Weekly Update.”

Now, let’s hop to it…?

Medical device fraud

Medical device maker Stimwave promised to release patients from the stranglehold of addictive painkillers with its nerve-stimulating devices. Stimwave’s system came with a sleek, wearable battery attached to thin wires under the skin. There was just one problem: some of the devices contained dummy pieces of plastic that did nothing at all.

Nearly 8,000 patients were implanted with dummy parts of the device, defrauding #Medicare and private insurers of millions of dollars between 2017 and 2020.?

Our colleague Lizzy Lawrence dives into the details of the medical device fraud, including how the scheme escaped doctors and the #FDA in a STAT special report.

Racism in Nursing?

Racism is a huge problem in nursing. Recent surveys show 81% of registered nurses are white, despite a stream of pronouncements against discrimination made by nursing organizations and schools since 2020. And nurses working in residential care facilities, home health, and hospital settings were more likely to say they experienced racism than those working in doctor’s offices.?

Experts say the results reveal a deeply entrenched culture of racism and white supremacy in nursing that stretches back to the field’s iconic founding heroine Florence Nightingale.

Abortion rights?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is launching a fresh round of questioning on states’ limits to abortion rights as a battle on medication abortion hangs in the balance at a federal court.?

Besides access to mifepristone — which is in limbo with a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals case — Warren asked about confusion over the slightly less effective abortion drug misoprostol.?

Read more on this exclusive from our colleague Sarah Owermohle .?

Nuance’s AI scribe

This week is full of STAT exclusives and special reports. Our colleague Brittany Trang writes about Microsoft-owned Nuance Communications and its #AI medical scribe platform.

Nuance sells its product to #healthcare providers on the promise that it can decrease doctor burnout and ultimately make more money by enabling doctors to see more patients.?

But an examination reveals that health systems have deep frustrations not just with Nuance’s steep costs, but also a lack of transparency about how much peer institutions are paying for the same service. The four executives who spoke to STAT for this story are not paying the same amount per physician for the service.?

RSV Update

On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved a second vaccine to protect older adults against #RSV, giving a green light to Pfizer’s Abrysvo for adults 60 and older.?

In case you haven’t been keeping up with Helen Branswell ’s reporting on this, last week she flagged that while this vaccine is finally reaching seniors, it’s an open question whether they will care enough to want to take it.

PBM reform

A top executive at CVS Health , which owns one of the largest PBMs in the country, said the company would find ways to maintain its level of profit if Congress implements wide-ranging reforms to pharmacy benefit managers.?

“There’s other ways in the economic model that we can adjust to if one of those things changes,” Shawn Guertin, CVS’ chief financial officer, said at an industry conference this week. “The other important part of this, if some of these things change, it could lead to higher costs for employers and health plans.”

Congress is targeting two main practices used by PBMs: rebates and spread pricing. Our colleague Bob Herman explains the details.?

That's all we have for you this week!

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