MCMS President contributes to the latest issue of In Business Magazine
 MCMS President Michael Mills, MD, MPH provides his Feedback about the challenges of private practice ownership in Arizona in the latest issue of In Business Magazine. View a digital copy in your web browser. Dr. Mills' article is on page 12. |
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February 17 & 18, 2012
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Connect with Us!
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President's Message
The Medical Industrial Complex: Understanding the Business of Medicine
By: Michael R. Mills, MD, MPH
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 | Michael R. Mills, MD, MPH
2012 President
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In my January's President's Page I raised the need for unity and solidarity as we assert our proper position with other stakeholders at the table impacting healthcare reform, needing to know who has been at the helm and steering our industry into precarious waters. While this review is not comprehensive, understanding the business of healthcare is prerequisite for physicians to positively impact the system in which we not only dedicate our professional careers, but where we and our loved ones must also navigate as patients. The extreme complexity of our healthcare delivery system easily overwhelms not only a layperson, but also the most sapient amongst our ranks, rendering us infirm of purpose to effectively impact the healthcare reform debate at hand. Putting our collective heads in the sand by capitulating the destiny of our industry to others through passivity and complacency, we have not prevented unwarranted regulations, profiteering resulting in an escalation of costs, or exasperated patients and physicians. Read More... |
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For Some Medical Residents, Empathy Declines With Long-Call
| | In a newly published study, researchers found the majority of medical residents surveyed experienced a decline in empathy over the course of the oft-used "long-call" shift.
Fatigue and sleep deprivation are undisputed job descriptors for medical residents, but results from a new study indicate the common "long-call" shift may have adverse effects not only for residents, but also their patients.
University of Arizona alumna Stacey Passalacqua, now a visiting assistant professor at James Madison University's School of Communication, surveyed nearly 100 medical residents at several different hospitals. Read More... |
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Questions to Ask Your Vendor for the Version 5010 Upgrade
| | The compliance deadline to upgrade to Version 5010 from Version 4010/4010A was January 1, 2012. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an enforcement discretion period for 90 days until March 31, 2012, during which it would not initiate enforcement action with respect to any HIPAA-covered entity that is non-compliant with the ASC X12 Version 5010 (Version 5010), NCPDP Telecom D.0 (NCPDP D.0) and NCPDP Medicaid Subrogation 3.0 (NCPDP 3.0) standards. However, you should continue to upgrade your systems as promptly as possible in order to meet this deadline.
In order to ensure a smooth upgrade prior to April, you will need to complete both phase I internal and phase II external testing of Version 5010 transactions. As part of your external testing, you will need to conduct tests with outside trading partners, which include vendors, clearinghouses, billing services, and payers. Your vendor is a critical partner in achieving Version 5010 compliance. Read More... |
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Doctors Lobby Urges GOP to Halt New Insurance Codes
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The largest physicians lobby has sent House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) a letter urging him to halt a federal requirement forcing doctors to switch to new insurance codes in 2013.
The American Medical Association (AMA) says switching to so-called ICD-10 coding will require doctors' offices to deal with some 68,000 codes, more than five times the current 13,000. The change will cost medical practices anywhere between $83,290 and more than $2.7 million, depending on size - at a time when Medicare payment rates face an almost 30 percent cut.
The switch will "create significant burdens on the practice of medicine with no direct benefit to individual patient care," AMA CEO James Madara wrote to Boehner. Read More...
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Entrepreneurs Try to Fill Gap in Online Medical Help
| | Go online and it's easy to compare just about anything according to cost, value or performance, but health plans? Doctors? Prescriptions drugs? Not so much.
Many people end up confused or alarmed when they use the Web to self-diagnose (Google: itchy skin rash), check out a doctor or research medical costs. The information seems incomplete because there's relatively little factual healthcare data available online to consumers or the entrepreneurs that want to cater to them. Read More... |
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MCMS Member - Dr. Richard R. Heuser, MD - Presenting at the CTO Forum in Washington, DC
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Richard R. Heuser, MD
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MCMS Member Dr. Richard R. Heuser, MD will be presenting at the CTO forum at CRT 2012 in Washington, DC, February 4-7.
Also serving as a Course Director, Dr. Heuser, in conjunction with Craig A. Thompson, MD, Course Director, will kick off the meeting with a historical narrative on devices and frustrations in the CTO space. They will provide an overview of the Japan-to-US technology and technique transition, and bring the group up to speed on current best practices as well as unmet needs. Dr. Heuser stated that, "with the reduction in restenosis with DES and advances in left main PCI, the treatment of CTOs is clearly the Final Frontier for treatment of coronary disease by non-surgical techniques." Read More... |
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MedaBytes Newsletter - Tips, Tricks and Important News
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MedaBytes - a business service of Maricopa County Medical Society - has launched a FREE E-Newsletter, which shares tips, tricks and important news that will help to keep information systems running smoothly within a healthcare-focused business environment.
The newsletter is sent minimally once a month to subscribers, but may be published up to four times a month depending on content, issues, events and news items that are time-sensitive or high priority.
The MedaBytes newsletter is distributed to physicians, office staff and healthcare professionals that have subscribed to the mailing list and existing clients.
Stay "in-the-know" and subscribe now!
Save 10% off your first MedaBytes service call.
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People In State High-Risk Insurance Plans Often Feel Left Behind
| | The 2010 healthcare overhaul creates state-based health plans for those who have medical conditions that make them uninsurable in the private market. These "preexisting-condition insurance plans" (PCIPs) are intended to act as a bridge until 2014, when insurers will no longer be able to refuse to cover people with medical problems or charge them more than other consumers. As of November, about 45,000 people had signed up for those plans, far fewer than the up to 400,000 that was originally projected.
However, there is a much larger group, more than 220,000 people, who have coverage through 35 state high-risk pools that were in existence before the overhaul was passed. Because of restrictions in the new law, they can't sign up for the PCIP plans, even though the coverage is often cheaper (thanks in part to federal funding) and more comprehensive. For these people, 2014 can't come soon enough.
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