December 2005

(12/23/2005)  --  Despite Senate action earlier this week to freeze next year's Medicare physician payments at 2005 levels, physicians will see -- at least temporarily -- a 4.4 percent Medicare reduction in January. That's the word from CMS officials who have said that until the House approves the Senate version of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, S. 1932, and the bill is signed by the president, CMS cannot prevent the pay reduction. The catch: The House has adjourned for the year and won't take up the bill until Jan. 31. More

(12/23/2005)  --  Family physicians spend more than 10 minutes completing all the necessary paperwork to ensure that a patient who needs a power mobility device gets it, AAFP told CMS in a recent letter. More

(12/23/2005)  --  Medical schools with active family medicine interest groups appear to match a higher percentage of students into family medicine than their less active counterparts, according to a recent AAFP survey. More

(12/23/2005)  --  Attention family physicians: Are you interested in participating in a project that could revitalize your practice and help lead the specialty into the future? More

(12/21/2005)  --  Keep an eye on your mailbox for the latest issue of Your Financial Health. The front-page story can help you and your family prepare for disasters caused by foul weather, fire or terrorism. More

(12/21/2005)  --  The Academy has further ramped up its governmental advocacy activities with the launch of a state legislative tracking system that provides virtually live updates on bills working their way through state capitols. More

(12/21/2005)  --  Question: What do these foods have in common? -- milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and soybeans. Answer: They're the eight major allergenic foods. Now, a news flash: If a food contains protein from any of these eight foods, manufacturers need to list the food on the package label beginning Jan. 1. More

(12/21/2005)  --  Family physicians across the country could win significant tax relief if their states adopted a New Jersey law endorsed by the Council of State Governments as suggested state legislation for the 2007 legislative cycle. More

(12/20/2005)  --  Carlos Jaen, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chairman in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, has been named to the National Advisory Council for the Agency on Healthcare Research and Quality. The council advises HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt and AHRQ Director Carolyn Clancy, M.D. More

(12/20/2005)  --  The drumbeat to permanently repair the Medicare physician payment system continues to rumble across Capitol Hill, despite a cacophony of competing claims for Congressional attention. More

(12/19/2005)  --  For only the second time in its history, Family Practice Management has published an article online before the article appears in print. Although "Are You Ready for Medicare Part D?" by Holly Biola, M.D., will appear in the January print issue, FPM editors published the article online Dec. 9 because of the topic's timeliness. More

(12/19/2005)  --  In January, family physicians' fax machines may begin churning out "Request for Prescription Information or Change" forms from local pharmacists who have been asked to fill prescriptions not covered by patients' Medicare Part D prescription plans. More

(12/16/2005)  --  Meticulous documentation will come in handy if a physician is called upon to prove the accuracy of his or her coding, according to Trevor Stone, AAFP's manager of private sector advocacy. Stone said in the past year some members have reported receiving letters from insurance companies warning them about inaccurate coding. The insurers claim the physicians are billing more of one code level -- usually a 99214 -- than other physicians in the insurer's panel of physicians. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More

(12/16/2005)  --  Here are some practical tips you can employ to help you fight the coding battle. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More

(12/16/2005)  --  Among fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries 65 and older, chances are their health status is about the same whether they visit only a generalist or only a specialist. More

(12/16/2005)  --  Health care costs continue to spiral upward. Partisan politics continue to swirl. And, caught in the vortex, American patients continue to see their first-dollar health care coverage siphon away. More

(12/15/2005)  --  Undercoding could be costing family physicians $100,000 or more a year, and research shows FPs bill for 1.08 fewer patient problems per encounter than they actually treat. Coding correctly may be the most important thing family physicians can do to improve their bottom lines. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More

(12/14/2005)  --  Cancer survivors rarely receive the specialized follow-up care they need, according to a report released by the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council of the National Academies. More

(12/14/2005)  --  TelaDoc Medical Services lets patients who pay a monthly fee call an answering service and, within three hours, talk with a physician. That physician may -- or may not -- give them a prescription. Is this faster service than what family physicians offer? By and large -- no, said AAFP President Larry Fields, M.D., of Ashland, Ky., in an Associated Press story published Dec. 10 in various newspapers, including The Kansas City (Mo.) Star. More

(12/14/2005)  --  School districts receiving funds for the National School Lunch Program must create a "wellness policy" by June. This need creates an opportunity for family physicians to work with educational leaders in school-based efforts to combat childhood obesity. More

(12/14/2005)  --  The diagnosis of diabetes can raise a myriad of questions in the patient's mind. A pair of brochures from the AAFP Family Health Facts series answers some of the most commonly asked questions and offers needed advice in an easily digestible format the patient can take home. More

(12/14/2005)  --  A new article from the Academy's Robert Graham Center blasts "dysfunctional financing schemes" that prevent adequate funding of U.S. primary care. The article also presents possibilities for building "a stable and robust health system built on primary care." More

(12/13/2005)  --  FP David Kresnicka, M.D., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, has sought colonoscopy privileges for six years in two local hospitals. He's taken colonoscopy courses -- one from the AAFP -- and has performed about 500 colonoscopies in a rural hospital. "I've never had perforations, never had bleeds, and I reach the cecum about 98 percent of the time," he says. More

(12/13/2005)  --  A recent mailing from the American College of Gastroenterology to hospital administrators has the Academy fighting mad. The ACG is "attempting to scare hospitals and peer review participants into denying qualified physicians privileges," said AAFP Board Chair Mary Frank, M.D., of Mill Valley, Calif., in a Dec. 12 letter to those same administrators. More

(12/12/2005)  --  Medicare Part D prescription plans are required to give patients 60 days notice before changing the status of a medication covered under the plan, according to Jeffrey Kelman, M.D., medical officer for CMS' Center for Beneficiary Choices. Kelman notes that Medicare Part D prescription plans can change their formularies by dropping covered medications or boosting them to higher cost tiers. More

(12/12/2005)  --  Thanks to two partnering opportunities -- one new and one tried-and-true -- the AAFP is boosting its efforts to attract students to family medicine by pairing young people with family medicine residents who will serve as mentors. More

(12/09/2005)  --  The AAFP News Now article, "Coding Correctly But Denied Payment? Help Is Coming," and subsequent discussion of this issue in ANN's "Letters to the Editor" section, on the ANN bulletin board and in AAFP e-mail discussion lists provide examples of managed care organizations' encroachment on and blatant, unilateral disregard for the CPT billing system. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More (Members Only)

(12/07/2005)  --  The future just brightened for meeting seniors' health needs through professionals' collaboration. The federal Bureau of Health Professions has awarded a four-year, $2 million grant to the family and community medicine department at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, to establish a geriatric education center for eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware. More

(12/07/2005)  --  Call it the AAFP biathlon: Earn CME credit in not one, but two courses -- and hit the ski slopes after the sessions. For one week in February, the Copper Mountain Resort in Copper Mountain, Colo., will host two Academy CME courses: Chronic Disease Management: A Case-Based Approach is scheduled for Feb. 17-19, and Sports Medicine: Strategies for Treating Athletes will be Feb. 20-25. More

(12/07/2005)  --  If you thrive on doing groundbreaking research and if $500,000 each year for five years would come in handy, apply for an NIH Director's Pioneer Award. It is part of the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, a series of initiatives intended to transform research capabilities and speed research results from the bench to the bedside. More

(12/06/2005)  --  Physicians who care for rural and medically underserved populations would be among those given preference in competitive grants to implement or improve electronic health records under a bill passed by the U.S. Senate Nov. 18. More

(12/06/2005)  --  The Social Security Administration has launched a new electronic medical evidence system that aims to expedite the process for determining disability and allow physicians to more quickly receive payment for their services. More

(12/05/2005)  --  Physicians and representatives for physician organizations came out in force recently to provide oral testimony to the Colorado commissioner of insurance regarding the proposed acquisition of PacifiCare Health Systems by UnitedHealth Group Inc. More

(12/05/2005)  --  Family physician Jeffrey Levine, M.D., of Hillsborough, N.J., a contestant on the second edition of NBC's The Biggest Loser weight-loss reality show this fall, took center stage at the Conference on Patient Education Nov. 17-20 in Orlando, Fla. Levine, 43, weighed in at 370 pounds when he started The Biggest Loser; he left the show 103 pounds lighter. He now weighs 217 pounds, having lost a total of 153 pounds. More

(12/02/2005)  --  Modifications in vaccine administration codes may mean fewer reimbursement hassles for physicians. Specifically, CMS has revised the descriptors for codes G0008, G0009 and G00010 so that codes are now billable when a patient receives a Medicare-covered vaccine along with a noncovered vaccine. More

(12/01/2005)  --  AAFP went to bat for patients in rural America recently when it asked an insurance company to rethink a proposed policy that would effectively limit some patients' access to outpatient therapy services. More

(12/01/2005)  --  "Do the right thing," is the message AAFP is sending to 44 health insurance plans in response to family physicians' frustration with health plans that cut corners with CPT coding by inappropriately bundling a patient's preventive care visit with a problem-oriented evaluation and management service when both services occur on the same day. More