HJAR Jul/Aug 2025

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  JUL / AUG 2025 57 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalAR.com money out of the system... “They estimated earlier today that it costs between $35 and $45 per documentation of pre-authorization for the doctor’s office. It costs the same amount for the insurance company for every single time. And there were 3.2 million doc- uments last year for just Medicare Advantage. So multiply the numbers and you begin to real- ize we’re throwing money away on administrative costs. Just financially.” That’s somewhere between $224 million and $288 million, if our math is right. Oz went on to say, “We’re also wasting peo- ple’s time. And we have the technology today to actually address this in a meaningful fashion. But the most important reality is the administra- tion has made it clear: we’re not going to toler- ate it anymore. So either you fix it, or we’re going to fix it. And I think they wisely have decided they should fix it.” Russell Gregory, MD, to Join BCMCRural Health Clinic in August The BCMC Rural Health Clinic has announced that Russell Gregory, MD, will be joining the facil- ity as a family practice physician on August 4. Gregory graduated from Southern Arkansas University in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in pre-health studies. He went on to earn a Doctor of Medicine from St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada in the West Indies in 2021. Additionally, he earned a Master of Busi- ness Administration in multi-sector healthcare management from St. George’s University in 2022. Gregory is currently in the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ Southwest Family Medicine Residency Program in Texarkana. He began this program in 2022 and is the chief resident for Matthew Nix, MD. Prior to starting this residency program, he was a research assistant at the Chil- dren’s Diagnostic and Treatment Center of Bro- ward Health for almost a year. UAMS Invests Nikki Edge, PhD, in Newly Established Seilhan Endowed Chair for Child and Family Resilience UAMS College of Medicine invested Nicola “Nikki” Edge, PhD, professor and vice chair of research in the UAMS Department of Fam- ily and Preventive Medicine, in the Cathy Cole Seilhan and Denton Seilhan Endowed Chair for Child and Family Resilience during an April 17 ceremony. Edge is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair. Edge also serves as director of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine’s Research and Evaluation Division. She joined UAMS in 1996 as a research assistant in the Department of Psychiatry. Presidential Executive Order: DeliveringMost- Favored-Nation Drug Pricing to American Patients Editor’s Note: Please don’t skip over what is bur- ied in this story about this exciting Presidential Executive Order hopefully lowering drug pricing in the U.S. – it warrants national attention, and yet, almost no one is talking about it. According to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the pres- ident of the U.S. was given a “hundred million dollars from the pharmaceutical industry,” the secretary of Health and Human Services said, “there’s at least one pharmaceutical lobbyist for every congressman, every senator in Capitol Hill and every member of the Supreme Court; some estimates, three pharmaceutical companies, the industry itself spends three times what the next largest lobbyist spends on lobbying.” Pharmaceutical companies have done some extraordinary good. They’ve developed treat- ments that save lives and alleviate suffering. But that doesn’t justify the political power they now wield—or the willingness of politicians to accept it. Why does an industry meant to heal need to line the pockets of lawmakers? And why have we, as a citizenry, accepted a system so easily set up for influence by companies that make billions? Is this why we’re the most medicated population on Earth? In a press conference May 12th, President Trump issued an Executive Order that says he will get drug prices “down 60, 70, 80, 90%. But actu- ally more than that, if you think about it in the way mathematically.” He said he called Senate and House leaders, John Thune and Mike Johnson, to tell them they would have to “score that your cost for Medicaid and Medicare and just basically pharmaceuticals and drugs is going down at a level that nobody has ever seen before,” which will pay for the Golden Dome, to keep us safe. Trump continued, “So today, Americans spend 70% more for prescription drugs than we spent in the year 2000. Think of that. Our country has the highest drug prices anywhere in the world by sometimes a factor of 5, 6, 7, 8 times. It’s not like they’re slightly higher. They’re 6, 7, 8 times. There are even cases of 10 times higher, so that you go 10 times more expensive for the same drug. That’s big numbers. Even though the United States is home to only 4% of the world’s popula- tion, pharmaceutical companies make more than two-thirds of their profits in America. So think of that. With 4% of the population, the pharmaceu- tical companies make most of their money, most of their profits from America. That’s not a good thing.” Trump explained that “middle men,” presum- ably Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), will be cut out by the order. “To accelerate these price restrictions and reductions, my administration will also cut out the middlemen. We’re going to totally cut out the famous middlemen. Nobody knows who they are, middlemen. I’ve been hear- ing the term for 25 years, middlemen. I don’t know who they are, but they’re rich, that I can tell you. We’re going to cut out the middlemen and facilitate the direct sale of drugs at the most favored-nation price directly to the American cit- izen. So we’re cutting out probably the middle- men, that’s so important, right? They got to do that. They’re worse than the drug companies. They don’t even make a product and they make a fortune. Got very smart business people, that I can tell you.” Trump said the U.S. will open to “safe and legal Russell Gregory, MD