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November 2009
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Volume 3, Issue 20
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InforMed Society
Offical E-Newsletter of the Medical Society
Keeping you InforMed about the latest health care news!
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'Red Flag Rule' Update
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An effort is underway (HR 3763) to allow physician practices with 20 or less employees to be exempt from the Red Flag Rule. Please find more information here.
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From the President
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Brian R. Riveland, MD
It's Hard Not To Take It Personally!
With all of the focus on health care and what is happening in Washington, most of us are preoccupied with dealing with the system as it exists today. I was reminded of this in recent contract discussions with a payor. I pointed out to the payor that reimbursement has not changed at all over the last 5 years. The payor's response was the "market" does not allow them to increase our reimbursement. They seemed to admit that they do not understand how primary care practices can manage. I would argue the trend is not sustainable. Throughout the healthcare debate there is an acknowledgment that primary care needs to be preserved and expanded yet there seems to be no real action from the private or public sector to make that happen.
Complete article...
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"A most important key to successful leadership is your ability to
direct and challenge the very best that is in those whom you lead."
Anonymous
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Visit us on Facebook and Twitter!
Search for "Maricopa County Medical Society" on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter at:
twitter.com/medicalsociety
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"GERIATRICS: Preparing for the Future"
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November 13-14, 2009
Desert Willow
Conference Center
The Arizona Geriatrics Society will host its 21st
Annual Fall Symposium. Early reduced registrations are available through Friday, October
16th. For more information and to register for the conference, call
the AzGS office at (602) 265-0211 or visit their website www.arizonageriatrics.org
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Spread the WORD about WIC!
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In
early August, the Arizona WIC program sent information to doctor's offices
throughout Arizona regarding changes to the WIC program. To augment the state's
efforts, the Maricopa County WIC program is doing several mailings to doctor's
offices within Maricopa County. This outreach effort will address the following
issues:
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Communicate the
benefits of partnering with WIC and provide contact information for the nearest
WIC clinic
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Build awareness
about the Breastfeeding Peer Counseling Program, a peer-to-peer program
available in Maricopa County that helps new moms to know the benefits of
breastfeeding, understand the challenges and receive support to successfully
breastfeed.
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Introduce the
changes in the new federal Food Package available to WIC clients beginning Oct.
1.
- Reinforce the need for physicians to completely fill out
the new medical documentation forms when referring a patient to WIC.
Please review this attachment for more information regarding this great County program!
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Arizona
Hospital and Healthcare
Association CEO Announces Retirement
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John
Rivers, president and CEO of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association
(AzHHA), has announced that he will retire on Jan. 13, 2011, his 65th birthday.
Rivers, who has led the hospital advocacy organization since 1986, announced his
retirement plans to the Association's Board of Directors on Oct. 22. As AzHHA's
CEO, Rivers also serves as a member of its Board of Directors and as president
of the AzHHA Education Foundation and its Service
Corporation.
The
Association's Board of Directors has appointed a committee that will conduct the
search for a new CEO. The committee will be comprised of AzHHA's 2010 officers
as well as two past Association chairmen. It
includes:
Complete Article...
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County AHCCCS rolls grow to 750,000
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Three-quarters of a million people in the Phoenix metro area are on
the state's version of Medicaid, the roles of the indigent health
program growing by 112,000 since January.
The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System
reports that in October it had just over 750,000 people on its roles in
Maricopa County. That is up from 638,000 in January and up 20 percent
from October 2008 when it had 622,500.
Statewide there are close to 1.33 million Arizonans on AHCCCS, up 18 percent from a year ago
AHCCCS roles have grown as the economy and housing market soured.
The increase mirrors other welfare, public health and social safety net
programs with higher unemployment and financial distress pushing more
households towards public assistance.
There are another estimated 1 million Arizonans without health
insurance at all. The state's population is 6.5 million. Maricopa
County's population is 3.9 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
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Practices lose financial ground as recession outpaces productivity
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When faced with payment cuts, physicians traditionally
work longer hours or hire additional staff to help keep up revenue. But
those strategies have reached their limit, a report from the Medical
Group Management Assn. shows.
After hitting a peak in 2007, the median revenue a practice
collected per full-time-equivalent physician took a 7.8% dive in 2008,
according to the MGMA report on multispecialty practices, released in
October. While the organization also surveys single-specialty
practices, the association views multispecialty practices as a proxy
for overall economic trends for outpatient health care.
The amount of gross revenue taken in by multispecialty practices per
full-time physician steadily increased from $463,637 in 1998 to
$690,032 in 2007, as annual productivity gains that often ran into the
double digits helped lift revenues, mostly by single-digit percentages.
But gross revenue dipped to $637,677 in 2008.
Complete Article...
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Dispose
of Unwanted Drugs Safely at Sunnyslope
Community Day
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For safe disposal of unused
prescription drugs, North
Valley residents are
urged to bring their left over pills and potions to the parking lot adjacent
to John C. Lincoln Desert Mission headquarters at 9201 N. 5th St., Phoenix,
between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 14.
The "safe drug disposal event"
is part of Sunnyslope Community Day, with merchants and community organizations
offering food, door prizes, community information and fun for families. .
"This is an excellent
opportunity to keep prescriptions and over-the-counter preparations out of the
hands of curious children and pets, as well as out of the environment," said
Cheryl Dodson, RN, a nurse at John
C. Lincoln
North Mountain
Hospital and one of the
event's organizers. "Help prevent drug
abuse or accidental poisoning and protect the environment. Bring your unwanted
drugs to 9201 N. 5th
St. on Nov. 14, between 10 and 2, and we will
dispose of them safely for you."
Complete Article...
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Primary Care Physicians Key in Preventing Major Depression in the Elderly
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Primary care physicians are emerging as the front line in efforts to reduce the growing numbers of depressed elderly.
Researchers from the University of Rochester, New York, report that
the elderly patients at greatest risk for depression onset have early
factors that are among those routinely assessed in primary care visits.
These include minor or subsyndromal depression, history of major or
minor depression, and impaired functional status.
The data on impaired functional status are noteworthy, because they
suggest that functional disability, rather than medical illness burden,
is the more important risk factor.
Complete Article...
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Could 'medical homes' improve health care?
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A thousand miles from the health care debate in Washington, Dr. Don Klitgaard and his colleagues are carrying out their own reform in a small Iowa community.
They've
reorganized their clinic so nurses bird-dog patients whose health
problems, if ignored, could send them to the emergency room. And for
all their patients, they've invested in a computer system that tracks
leading indicators of health problems, like blood pressure and blood
sugar readings.
It's not just country medicine for the 21st century. Policymakers from
President Barack Obama on down have praised such experiments as key to
getting better quality without costly complications.
Complete Article...
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IDF Releases New Guidelines on Diabetes Management
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The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) announced the release of
several new guidelines related to diabetes management here at the IDF
20th World Diabetes Congress. These include the first-ever
international guidelines on the management of diabetes in pregnancy and
guidelines on the use of self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) among
type 2 diabetic patients not being treated with insulin.
Pregnancy and Diabetes Guidelines Call for Universal Screening
Lois Jovanovič, MD, CEO and chief scientific officer of Sansum
Diabetes Research Institute in Santa Barbara, California, and clinical
professor of medicine at the University of Southern California-Los
Angeles Medical Center, is one of the authors of the IDF Global Guideline on Pregnancy and Diabetes.
"The guidelines were created with evidence-based medicine. Then we
asked an international group [of experts] to give us their opinion,"
she told Medscape Diabetes & Endocrinology.
Complete Article...
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since
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InforMed
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Copyright
© 2009
Questions
or Comments, please email us at: InforMed@mcmsonline.com |
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