September 2006

(09/29/2006)  --  The AAFP Congress of Delegates on Sept. 28 elected Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., to be the AAFP's next president-elect. More

(09/29/2006)  --  Leveling the playing field between retail health clinics and medical homes. Helping ensure payment for point-of-care testing. Those are among the bottom line issues the AAFP will tackle in upcoming months in response to resolutions approved on Sept. 27 by the Congress of Delegates. More

(09/29/2006)  --  "The great mystery of health care in America today is not how to unlock the human genome or what the next imaging procedure will be,” said incoming AAFP President Rick Kellerman, M.D., of Wichita, Kan., in his president’s address on Sept. 28. Rather, he said, “the great mystery of health care in America is why each and every American does not have a personal medical home with a family physician. More

(09/29/2006)  --  Steven Levin, M.D., medical director and sole physician at St. John’s Health Center in New Brunswick, N.J., won acclaim as the 2007 Family Physician of the Year during the AAFP Scientific Assembly’s opening ceremony on Sept. 28. More

(09/29/2006)  --  To accept gifts and samples from the pharmaceutical industry or not to accept them; to change the AAFP’s new governance structure or not to change it -- these are only two of many organizational questions the AAFP Congress of Delegates wrestled with this week. More

(09/28/2006)  --  Breakthrough time. IBM seeks AAFP’s help in figuring out how to get each IBM employee a medical home. Insurance companies discover the value of family medicine. And starting in 2007, about $4 billion a year in Medicare payments will shift from procedural services to evaluation and management services. More

(09/28/2006)  --  A new AAFP national workforce reform report that calls for a 39 percent increase in family physicians by 2020 is part of comprehensive health care reform designed to provide “what’s best for the country,” according to Academy leaders. More

(09/28/2006)  --  In a historic first, family physicians rallied on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 27 to deliver a clear message to Congress: Take action on issues that threaten access to health care for all Americans. More

(09/27/2006)  --  The CDC has called for routine, voluntary HIV screening of all patients aged 13-64 in all health care settings. The agency issued "Revised Recommendations for HIV Testing of Adults, Adolescents and Pregnant Women in Health Care Settings" in the Sept. 22 issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. More

(09/26/2006)  --  A recent report about the National Commission on Prevention Priorities' project, "Priorities for America's Health: Capitalizing on Life-Saving, Cost-Effective Preventive Services," found that for some services and some population groups, receiving evidence-based clinical preventive services is unlikely. More

(09/26/2006)  --  Health care services that pay both a monthly fee and an adequate fee-for-service rate to primary care physicians can save millions of dollars for Medicaid. More

(09/26/2006)  --  The AAFP Marketplace, Booth 2235 at the Scientific Assembly, is the perfect spot to learn more about AAFP initiatives. More

(09/25/2006)  --  Robert Kolodner, M.D., has been named Interim National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. More

(09/25/2006)  --  Americans are not getting a lot of value for their health care dollar, which seems to be -- at least in part -- due to poor access to primary care physicians, according to Ichiro Kawachi, M.D., Ph.D., professor of social epidemiology and director of the Harvard Center for Society and Health. More

(09/25/2006)  --  America spends twice as much for health care as other industrialized nations. For that investment, the United States has bought the highest infant mortality rate among 23 industrialized nations; one of the lowest healthy life expectancy rates for people older than age 60, some of the highest insurance administrative costs and among the lowest use of electronic health records, or EHRs. More

(09/25/2006)  --  If you and your patients have struggled to make sense of the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, you're not alone. Two recent surveys of physicians and pharmacists by the Kaiser Family Foundation report that 92 percent of physicians and 91 percent of pharmacists thought the law was too complicated, despite its perceived value in saving money for patients. More

(09/22/2006)  --  The House of Representatives is moving rapidly to pass legislation to reauthorize and revamp the NIH before the end of the congressional session. More

(09/22/2006)  --  Family physicians concerned about the daily hassle of verifying patients' insurance information will welcome a recent announcement from the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare, or CAQH. Help is on the way. More

(09/22/2006)  --  A new curriculum featuring sessions on conflict management, time management, prioritization, team building and negotiation will be the focus of a Nov. 18 Faculty Development Series workshop at the University of California, Los Angeles. More

(09/21/2006)  --  As of Sept. 20 the CDC said in a press release that 23 states had reported 146 cases of Escherichia coli 0157:H7 infection related to eating fresh spinach. Cases included 23 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome, a form of kidney failure; 66 hospitalizations; and one death in Wisconsin. More

(09/21/2006)  --  Family medicine residents are beginning to feel the impact of the nation's primary care physician shortage as demand for their specialty continues to rise and more recruiters contact them with employment opportunities. More

(09/20/2006)  --  Family physicians can help their low-income and uninsured adult patients in need of vaccinations get free vaccines through a new patient assistance program offered by Merck and Co. Inc. More

(09/20/2006)  --  If there ever were a time for action regarding Medicare physician payment, this is it. More (Members Only)

(09/20/2006)  --  Four-year family medicine residency training strikes a chord with some medical students and may, in fact, increase their interest in the specialty, says the director of the University of Arizona Family Medicine Residency. More

(09/20/2006)  --  The 2006 Scientific Assembly is less than a week away, but you still can be a part of it all. Washington, D.C., will host this year's Assembly from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1. The Exposition Hall will be open Sept. 28 to 30. More

(09/20/2006)  --  Want to avoid a Medicare pay cut in 2007? Use the AAFP Speak Out to contact your federal legislators now. More

(09/19/2006)  --  A handy new online toolkit -- Payment for Same-day Preventive and Acute Services -- is available to family physicians looking for solutions to combat insurance company payment denial. More

(09/15/2006)  --  Family physicians and pediatricians share common ground as they tackle issues such as children's unmet needs; health in the context of families and communities; and "millennial morbidities" such as violence, obesity, family distress and poverty. Having these mutual concerns means that now is the time for collaboration (not competition) between family medicine and pediatrics, says the abstract for "Family Physicians in the Child Health Care Workforce: Opportunities for Collaboration in Improving the Health of Children" in the September issue of Pediatrics. More

(09/13/2006)  --  Pressure to provide health care coverage for everyone in the United States and to overhaul America’s health care system may build as a result of a recent U.S. Census Bureau Report, according to health policy analysts. More

(09/13/2006)  --  The AAFP's Robert Graham Center: Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care in Washington, D.C., which conducts health policy research and seeks to infuse the nation's health care debate with a family medicine perspective, is planning to hold an open house Sept. 28 during the Academy's Scientific Assembly in that city. More

(09/13/2006)  --  Fall has arrived, but there are still plenty of opportunities to complete the American Board of Family Medicine's Maintenance of Certification Program for Family Physicians, or MC-FP, requirements before the end of the year. More

(09/13/2006)  --  Although many health care professionals ran short of influenza vaccine or received delayed shipments last year, the same delays are not expected this year, according to a Sept. 6 news release from the CDC. Manufacturers are increasing the supply and speeding up deliveries, says the release. More

(09/12/2006)  --  News in recent issues of AAFP News Now makes me think the death bell is tolling for family medicine as we know it today. Please consider the following: More (Members Only)

(09/12/2006)  --  Fix the software. That was the Academy's message to two health insurance payers that have raised the ire of some family physicians who aren't getting paid for urinalysis testing for patients when the test is performed during an evaluation and management visit. More

(09/11/2006)  --  Family physicians interested in practice redesign should take some time to explore a new Web site recently launched by TransforMED,the Academy's not-for-profit practice redesign initiative. More

(09/08/2006)  --  The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine is accepting presentation proposals for the 2007 STFM Annual Spring Conference, April 25-29, 2007, in Chicago. The deadline for submissions is Sept. 13. More

(09/08/2006)  --  The Academy recently took a Medicare carrier to task for its proposal regarding draft Medicare local coverage determination on electrodiagnostic studies, saying the proposal would adversely affect FPs' ability to provide high-quality and comprehensive care to their patients. More

(09/06/2006)  --  "Those of us who don't live there have not gotten the full story of the impact of this event. It's much bigger than we can ever really conceive." More

(09/06/2006)  --  Waves swamped their clinics. Wind collapsed adjacent structures onto their buildings. The storm surge swept away their homes. In the midst of the storm and its aftermath, they cared for patients, working without electricity, light, clean water or supplies. They organized community response to the community need. They opened clinics. More

(09/06/2006)  --  Family physicians who are among the nearly 53,000 Academy members currently offering laboratory services to their patients need to know about educational opportunities available through the National Laboratory Training Network, or NLTN. More

(09/06/2006)  --  September is National Preparedness Month, http://www.ready.gov/america/npm/index.htm and the focus this year is on encouraging families to prepare for emergencies such as natural disasters and terrorist attacks. More

(09/06/2006)  --  Mark McClellan, M.D., Ph.D., who oversaw implementation of the Medicare Part D prescription program as administrator of CMS, will step down from that position in October. McClellan made the announcement Sept. 5. More

(09/05/2006)  --  The CDC is hosting two conference calls to help health care professionals get ready for the flu season. The first call, Issues in Vaccinating Adults Against Influenza, is at 2 p.m. EDT Sept. 7, and the second call, Issues in Vaccinating Children Against Influenza, is at 2 p.m. EDT Sept. 11. More

(09/05/2006)  --  Many family physicians play an important role for patients who present with emergency conditions. Refresh your knowledge of what to do in these situations at the Emergency and Urgent Care course, Nov. 1-5 in Tucson, Ariz. More

(09/05/2006)  --  The AAFP continues to fight for family physicians who want to provide the best possible care for their patients with diabetes. At issue is fair payment for CPT code 83037 -- a code that covers an affordable, self-contained hemoglobin A1C testing system designed for use by office-based physicians. More

(09/01/2006)  --  AAFP member, Bruce "Ned" Calonge, M.D., M.P.H., was appointed this spring to the CDC's Task Force on Community Preventive Services. This independent panel develops the Guide to Community Preventive Services, known as the Community Guide. More

(09/01/2006)  --  The federal government will make several regulatory reforms to level the playing field between specialty hospitals and community hospitals, but continuing a moratorium on physician-owned facilities won't be one of them, according to a CMS Deficit Reduction Act Report to Congress on physician-owned facilities. More