July 2007

(07/27/2007)  --  The Academy recently updated its annual influenza immunization recommendations. They are included in a new policy statement, "Immunization Against Influenza 2007-2008," approved July 18 by AAFP Board Chair Larry Fields, M.D., of Flatwoods, Ky. Although the revised recommendations, which are consistent with those developed by the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, contain relatively few outright changes from last season's recommendations, they re-emphasize some key considerations. More

(07/26/2007)  --  Primary care residency programs attract tens of millions -- sometimes hundreds of millions -- of dollars to teaching hospitals, bringing in more cash per resident than subspecialty training programs. That's according to payment tables on graduate medical education or GME, released July 16 by the Robert Graham Center in Washington. More

(07/26/2007)  --  Research in the July 12 New England Journal of Medicine demonstrates a link between lack of health insurance among people ages 51 to 61 and higher medical expenditures when those people qualified for Medicare at age 65. More

(07/25/2007)  --  The Senate Finance Committee has approved a $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, as part of a five-year reauthorization bill that would bring an estimated 3.3 million more recipients into the SCHIP program. But that $35 billion increase is less than the $50 billion expansion approved under the congressional budget resolution earlier this year. More

(07/25/2007)  --  Don Klitgaard, M.D., a family physician in Harlan, Iowa, knew he wanted to take better care of his patients. Although his practice was doing a pretty good job in terms of patient care, he knew it could do better. That's when Klitgaard heard about a model of care that incorporates elements such as advance-access scheduling, point-of-care services, team care, office redesign and electronic health records, or EHRs. It sounded like something he could use. More

(07/25/2007)  --  Surely you've heard the English proverb, "Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst," but have you really taken it to heart? If there's one thing that the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, and -- later -- the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina clearly spotlighted, it's the need to plan for disasters before they ever touch our lives. More

(07/25/2007)  --  Family medicine residents who want to participate in four-year training programs or complete a postresidency fellowship would be able to defer repayment of their student loans until after they complete the additional education under a bill currently being considered by the U.S. Senate. More

(07/24/2007)  --  The AAFP took its Tar Wars campaign to Capitol Hill on July 17, delivering a strong message to lawmakers about the need to support anti-smoking legislation. Nearly 40 children -- all of them winners of Tar Wars poster contests in their respective states -- met with their senators and representatives and talked about the need for greater tobacco-cessation efforts. More

(07/24/2007)  --  The AAFP has objected to key provisions of a health information technology, or HIT, bill because of the legislation's emphasis on federal support for large entities and hospitals instead of small and medium-sized practices where most health care interactions occur. More

(07/24/2007)  --  Two recently released studies assessing the relationship between the use of electronic health records, or EHRs (also referred to as electronic medical records, or EMRs), and the quality of health care delivered to patients came to similar conclusions: The mere use of an EHR in an ambulatory care setting did not improve the quality of health care delivered to patients. More

(07/23/2007)  --  This spring and summer have seen a steady stream of meetings between the AAFP and the nation's largest health insurance companies, as the Academy works to ensure that payers are aware of the family physician viewpoint when setting policies. More

(07/20/2007)  --  A soon-to-be introduced House bill would eliminate the sustainable growth rate, or SGR, formula by 2010, while providing slight increases in Medicare physician payment rates for the next two years as an alternative to steep payment cuts called for under the SGR formula. More

(07/19/2007)  --  Pay-for-performance, or P4P, sparked considerable controversy at the June 23-27 meeting of the AMA House of Delegates in Chicago, with participants debating several recommendations in an AMA council report on P4P, as well as a number of related resolutions. More

(07/19/2007)  --  Florida Medicare carrier First Coast Service Options Inc. recently published a final local coverage determination, or LCD, for electromyography and nerve conduction studies that gives physicians leeway to determine when to do both EMG and nerve conduction studies. Initially, the carrier had proposed that patients undergo both tests. More

(07/18/2007)  --  For the first time, users of the Internet phenomenon YouTube can learn a little about men's health, the personal medical home and the Academy's consumer site familydoctor.org -- thanks to an AAFP video clip posted recently on YouTube and other video-sharing Web sites More

(07/18/2007)  --  Congress will have an opportunity to include a provision for a patient-centered medical home as part of legislation that reauthorizes the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, said Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., during a June 28 congressional briefing in Washington. More

(07/18/2007)  --  As part of its 2007 Annual Clinical Focus: Management of Chronic Illness, the AAFP is offering free audio CME programs on care of patients who suffer from chronic illness. AAFP members can earn 1 Prescribed CME credit for each online program they complete. More

(07/17/2007)  --  It's not very sportsmanlike to say: "I told you so." So, for the sake of propriety, the AAFP and family physicians should restrain themselves. Why? Well, it seems that family medicine's message is starting to resonate -- the U.S. health care system needs serious care and attention. More (Members Only)

(07/17/2007)  --  Fourteen family medicine residency programs this summer are launching what have been dubbed "radical" approaches to training residents. The 14 programs, participants in the Preparing the Personal Physician for Practice, or P4, initiative, expect to reorder students' understanding of family medicine, other specialties’ assessment of family medicine and residents' own perceptions of themselves as physicians. More

(07/16/2007)  --  The AAFP recently urged congressional leaders to stop a scheduled 10 percent reduction in Medicare payment rates next year and to provide positive payment updates in 2008 and 2009. That request was made during a series of July 10 meetings on Capitol Hill and reiterated in a press briefing just after the visits. More

(07/13/2007)  --  The United States can vastly improve its health care system simply by using tools that already are in place, according to a recent Commonwealth Fund report. "Aiming Higher: Results from a State Scorecard on Health System Performance," used 32 quality indicators to rate states' health systems in the general areas of access, quality, potentially avoidable use of hospitals and costs of care, equity, and residents' ability to live long and healthy lives. More

(07/13/2007)  --  Results from a recent AAFP survey indicate that the number of family physicians using electronic health records has risen consistently since the Academy began measuring members' EHR usage in 2003. Half of the 459 respondents to the survey, which was mailed to a random sample of 4,000 active AAFP members in April 2007, said they had either fully implemented (37 percent) or were in the process of implementing (13 percent) an EHR system in their practices More

(07/11/2007)  --  Students, residents: You still have a few more days to preregister for the National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students, Aug. 1-4 in Kansas City, Mo. July 17 is the preregistration deadline for the conference. More

(07/11/2007)  --  The patient-centered medical home is key to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in health care quality and access while improving the care and management of chronic conditions for all patients, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund. More

(07/10/2007)  --  Newly passed legislation intended to clamp down on Medicaid prescription fraud will require physicians to begin using electronic prescribing or tamper-resistant prescription pads for their Medicaid patients as of Oct. 1. The law, which is part of the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act of 2007, will deny federal reimbursement to states for Medicaid patients' prescriptions that are not written on tamper-resistant prescription pads. More

(07/10/2007)  --  The Academy recently sent the house of medicine a clear message: Any national health care policy agenda the AMA promulgates should be founded on the primary care-based medical home, and it should incorporate a payment model that comprises both a fee-for-service component and a per-patient, care-management stipend. Members of the AAFP delegation to the AMA House of Delegates delivered that advice during an open forum held here during the annual meeting of the AMA house. More

(07/10/2007)  --  The CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases gave its National Immunization Program Web site a major face-lift last month. In fact, if you go online looking for the old NIP site, you won't find it. Instead, you'll find yourself rerouted to a new Web destination, "Vaccines & Immunizations." More

(07/06/2007)  --  CMS has proposed revising Medicare payment rates, extending the length of a quality reporting program and implementing a controversial provision to reduce Medicare physician payments by nearly 10 percent next year. The agency issued a proposed rule on July 2 that calls for several revisions in the Medicare physician fee schedule in 2008 and an extension through next year of the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, or PQRI, which pays physicians for participating in a voluntary quality reporting program under Medicare. More

(07/06/2007)  --  Family physician Edward Langston, M.D., has a vision for shaping the nature of patient care for years to come -- a vision that the AMA House of Delegates signaled its approval of June 26, when it re-elected him to a second four-year term on the AMA Board of Trustees. Langston, of Lafayette, Ind., was named the board's chair-elect following the 2006 annual meeting and began his service as chair of the AMA board after this year's annual meeting. More

(07/06/2007)  --  Check out free online CME that aims to improve outcomes in patients with diabetes by raising awareness about the vital role quality measurement plays in improving care. More

(07/05/2007)  --  On June 21, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a fiscal year 2008 spending bill that would continue funding Title VII primary care training programs at current levels, greatly increasing the chances that Congress overall will approve level funding for the programs, according to analysts interviewed by AAFP News Now. More

(07/05/2007)  --  CMS has announced that it is delaying dissemination of National Provider Identifier, or NPI, data until Aug. 1 to allow health care providers a chance to check and, if needed, correct that information. According to a notice posted on the CMS Web site, health care providers must submit their data changes no later than July 16 to ensure that those changes are included in CMS' initial NPI file that will be available on the Internet on the above noted date. More

(07/05/2007)  --  The Academy's two flagship journals, American Family Physician and Family Practice Management, are again offering one-day, live CME courses at no charge to members. More

(07/03/2007)  --  Federal administrators have inappropriately rushed to issue a proposed rule that has no legal foundation, has been explicitly prohibited for one year in recent legislation and -- if implemented -- would severely damage medical education and the health care safety net. More

(07/03/2007)  --  Perseverance paid off during the annual meeting of the AMA House of Delegates June 23-27 in Chicago, when the AAFP delegation to the AMA house rallied other primary care delegates and supporters, scoring a win for FPs and other health care professionals who provide immunizations. More

(07/02/2007)  --  State lawmakers embraced the patient-centered medical home as an effective means of reducing costs and improving health care quality during a June 20-22 round-table meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures', Health Chairs Project. More

(07/02/2007)  --  As Congress begins to debate ways of reducing Medicare payments to physicians by a scheduled 10-percent reduction, the AAFP has launched a targeted grassroots campaign to stop the cut. More