July 2006

(07/28/2006)  --  A new Institute of Medicine report recommends broader adoption of electronic prescribing and other measures to cut down on the number of patients who get the wrong drug, dosage or mix of medications. More

(07/28/2006)  --  Two key health care quality alliances -- the AQA alliance and the Hospital Quality Alliance, or HQA -- have joined forces to form a new national Quality Alliance Steering Committee. More

(07/26/2006)  --  "Our specialty is already dead; we just forgot to lie down," one Academy member wrote recently to AAFP News Now, reacting to a list of woes, including the rise of retail health clinics, cuts in family medicine training funds and inadequate payments for family physicians. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More (Members Only)

(07/26/2006)  --  In separate advisories, the FDA warned July 19 that it may be dangerous to take certain medications for migraine headache and depression simultaneously and that decision-making in treating pregnant women who have depression is becoming increasingly complex. More

(07/26/2006)  --  Technological tools, such as cell phones and personal computers, give teenagers easy access to drugs, warned John Walters, the U.S. drug czar and director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, during a July 18 roundtable discussion with teens who are in drug treatment. More

(07/26/2006)  --  Effective Aug. 1, the Academy's Socioeconomics Division will have a new name: the Practice Support Division. More

(07/26/2006)  --  If your practice has problems stemming from patients hanging up on your office phone when placed on hold or being agitated after returning from being on hold, the AAFP may be able to help. For as little as $28.50 a month, Academy members can realize the benefits of customized on-hold messaging from Docs-On-Hold, a new program powered by Sound Products. More

(07/26/2006)  --  The American Board of Family Medicine, sponsor of the Maintenance of Certification Program for Family Physicians, or MC-FP, is offering tips for completing the program's self-assessment modules, known as SAMs, in the summer 2006 issue of The Phoenix. More

(07/25/2006)  --  Further data indicating that Massachusetts is struggling with a "severe shortage" of family physicians have joined a series of surveys confirming the need for policies that support primary care medicine, according to the Massachusetts Medical Society, or MMS. More

(07/21/2006)  --  Work with us to make America tobacco-free. That's the request 31 grade-school children, who were winners in the Academy's Tar Wars poster contest, made of about 75 federal lawmakers and legislative aides July 18 on Capitol Hill. More

(07/21/2006)  --  Against the will of Congress, HHS has proposed an adjustment to Medicaid funding that is expected to reduce the flow of federal money to the states by as much as $12.2 billion during the next five years. More

(07/19/2006)  --  Physician workforce analysts would do well to study residency program closures as they try to determine whether America faces a shortage or surplus of primary care physicians, say health policy analysts at the AAFP's Robert Graham Center in Washington. More

(07/19/2006)  --  The AAFP Division of Medical Education is launching a study into factors contributing to the closure of family medicine residency programs around the United States and efforts to prevent those closures. The study will provide both quantitative and qualitative measures of the reasons behind and the effects of residency program closures, according to lead investigator Amy McGaha, M.D., assistant director of the AAFP Division of Medical Education. More

(07/19/2006)  --  Lawmakers are looking for ways to boost the draw of health savings accounts, or HSAs, among health consumers, despite some reports that the high-deductible health insurance plans linked to the accounts have resulted in more uncompensated care. More

(07/19/2006)  --  The names of the first certified ambulatory electronic health record products in the country were announced July 18 at a press conference at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. More

(07/19/2006)  --  A new campaign seeks to raise a public outcry to make comprehensive, consistent health care coverage for all children a top priority for the country’s leaders. More

(07/19/2006)  --  It's not too late to register for the 2006 National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students, but you need to hustle to reserve your spot at the Aug. 2-5 event in Kansas City, Mo. More

(07/18/2006)  --  Men seeking a quick fix for erectile dysfunction, or ED, may be purchasing "dietary supplements" online that promise to improve their sexual potency but that actually could lower their blood pressure to dangerous levels, the FDA said in a July 12 news release. More

(07/17/2006)  --  Physicians who provide laboratory services to their patients -- and nearly 90 percent of AAFP's 58,500 Active members do so -- may want to get their hands on some facts about the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments, or CLIA, that are available from the Medicare Learning Network. More

(07/17/2006)  --  Another chapter in the class-action lawsuit filed in 1999 on behalf of more than 700,000 physicians came to a close recently when a federal judge dismissed all remaining claims against UnitedHealth Group and Coventry Health Care Inc. More

(07/14/2006)  --  An 18-wheeler brimming with family-oriented health exhibits may be in your neighborhood this summer. If the traveling exhibit stops near your town, encourage your patients to make a visit. More

(07/13/2006)  --  Immediately following a July 6 meeting with high-level Aetna executives at Academy headquarters in Leawood, Kan., Timothy Komoto, M.D., of Mendota Heights, Minn., a member of the AAFP Board of Directors who represented the Academy at the meeting, pinned down the overriding message he'd heard: "There was a recognition that the primary care system is important," he said. "I am encouraged that a major insurance company is willing to work with us to support that." More

(07/12/2006)  --  Each year, more than 1 million people in the United States have a heart attack, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, or NHLBI. To help educate Americans, particularly the elderly, about the dangers of heart attacks and how to prevent them, the NHLBI, the National Institute on Aging and the National Library of Medicine have collaborated to add a heart attack section to the NIHSeniorHealth Web site. More

(07/12/2006)  --  Many family physicians and pediatricians may overprescribe antibiotics for acute pharyngitis, according to a research report in the June issue of Pediatrics. Surveys completed by 525 AAFP members and 423 members of the American Academy of Pediatrics led to the findings of overprescription and other errors. More

(07/12/2006)  --  Improve your resource library -- and, quite possibly, your ability to counsel patients about genetically mediated conditions -- at no cost with the 2005 Annual Clinical Focus Genomics CD-ROM. More

(07/12/2006)  --  Physician assistants, who already obtain certification as PAs, are considering creating specialty recognition or certification programs. In response, the Academy has advised PAs to beware of creating "specialty silos." More

(07/11/2006)  --  On Thursday, Sept. 28, the AAFP Congress of Delegates will select three finalists from among five nominees from constituent chapters for an AAFP position on the American Board of Family Medicine Board of Directors. In April 2007, the ABFM board will choose one representative to fill the vacancy created by the expiration of the term of Frank Kane, M.D., of Newton, N.J., in early 2006. More

(07/11/2006)  --  In an effort to cut down on the thousands of deaths each year that are caused by medication errors, the FDA and Institute for Safe Medication Practices, or ISMP, have launched a joint initiative aimed at educating health professionals to avoid using unclear medical abbreviations and notations. More

(07/11/2006)  --  Accurate coding may be the single most important way to ensure the financial health of a family physician's practice. To help members improve their coding skills, the Academy has launched the first in a series of coding tutorials available through the AAFP's Web site. More

(07/10/2006)  --  AAFP News Now has won an Award of Excellence in the 2006 APEX Awards for Publication Excellence. ANN was honored in the Individual Web Pages and Sections category for its area on the Academy's Web site. More

(07/10/2006)  --  The Academy's list of Desired Attributes of Retail Health Clinics became an integral part of newly adopted AMA policy on these facilities. More

(07/07/2006)  --  The Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC, has called for a new emphasis on attracting and fostering more translational and clinical researchers. That emphasis should begin in medical school and continue throughout residency training, says the AAMC. More

(07/07/2006)  --  Although CMS has resisted calls to declare a general amnesty for beneficiaries who missed the May 15 enrollment deadline for Medicare Part D drug coverage, the agency is allowing a small group of seniors to sign up before the end of the year without penalty. Meanwhile, some federal lawmakers are attempting to address other problems faced by those who already have signed up for the prescription drug program. More

(07/05/2006)  --  For the first time ever, the AAFP will hold a family physician rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., to telegraph the urgent need for health system reform to the U.S. Congress, congressional candidates in the November election, CMS and the Bush administration. All AAFP members are urged to attend the Sept. 27 event, scheduled for 10 a.m. on the West Lawn of the Capitol. More

(07/05/2006)  --  Women in their first trimester of pregnancy should avoid taking angiotensin-converting enzyme, or ACE, inhibitors, according to a report in the June 8 New England Journal of Medicine. Earlier studies have identified the danger of using ACE inhibitors during the second and third trimesters. More

(07/05/2006)  --  Imagine this: thousands of family physicians amassing in Washington, D.C., gathering as one on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol -- and voting with their feet, their hearts and their voices for Congress to fix the broken U.S. health care system now. More (Members Only)

(07/05/2006)  --  The National Resident Matching Program, or NRMP, will remain intact as a result of a June 1 federal appeals court decision that affirms a lower court's dismissal of antitrust litigation against the program. More

(07/05/2006)  --  MBNA America's recent merger with Bank of America may not seem like medical news, but it will have some effect on AAFP members who participate in the AAFP credit card and Practice Finance Solutions programs. As a result of the merger, MBNA is now Bank of America Card Services. More

(07/03/2006)  --  AAFP leaders have met with CMS Administrator Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., and the Academy has launched a Speak Out Action Alert as part of an ongoing, concerted effort to resolve a dispute over Medicare payment to residency programs that use volunteer preceptors. More

(07/03/2006)  --  State-of-the-art care for kids -- that's the aim of the Academy's 2006 Annual Clinical Focus: Caring for Children and Adolescents. More