All News

The smoke has settled, the votes are in, and health reform is real. We’ve all heard about the supposed benefits and drawbacks of the reform package, which includes new rules on coverage for insurers, a mandate that almost every uninsured American citizen get coverage, new taxes, and cuts in Medicare. While others debate whether reform will lead to a healthier and fairer America, or to its ruin, we know you’re concerned about how the new landscape will affect you and your practice.

on CL multimedia page

Health Policy Questions That Matter to Primary Care Practitioners: Insights From an ExpertFeaturing David B. Nash, MD, MBA, the Dr Raymond C. and Doris N. Grandon Professor of Health Policy and founding dean of the Jefferson School of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University.

The smoke has settled, the votes are in, and health reform is real. We’ve all heard about the supposed benefits and drawbacks of the reform package, which includes new rules on coverage for insurers, a mandate that almost every uninsured American citizen get coverage, new taxes, and cuts in Medicare. While others debate whether reform will lead to a healthier and fairer America, or to its ruin, we know you’re concerned about how the new landscape will affect you and your practice.

The editors of Drug Benefit Trends interviewed Peter Juhn, MD, MPH, president of the Therapeutic Resource Centers (TRCs) division at Medco Health Solutions, Inc. He discusses the TRC program, launched in 2007, which monitors prescription drug use in patients with specific chronic conditions and is designed to close gaps in care.

A national survey done by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) showed that workers are hesitant to seek treatment for mental health issues. Reasons cited included concerns about confidentiality or fears of loss of status in the workplace.

The use of bisphosphonates, which are commonly taken to prevent and treat osteoporosis, may lower the risk of breast cancer, according to the results of a recent study led by Polly A. Newcomb, PhD, MPH, a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

Until recently, I never paid much attention to the possibility that abnormalities of the parathyroid glands could be relevant to patients in my practice. But I decided to learn more about this issue when one of my patients with bipolar disorder who had been treated with lithium told me that she had been given a diagnosis of a parathyroid adenoma after her primary care physician noted hypercalcemia on routine testing.

With the country’s greatest number of uninsured residents, the largest public insurance program, and one of the lowest rates of physician reimbursement, California is struggling to provide health care to the 6.5 million people who need it.

Comparative Effectiveness Research: Let’s Look at Those Rationing ChargesWho should oversee comparative effectiveness research? How should the information it produces be promulgated to physicians? And is there any basis for charges that CER will lead to health care rationing?

Limiting benefits and requiring higher out-of-pocket costs for patients with mental health or substance use disorders is a practice that group health insurance plans must abandon, according to new rules issued by the US government.

By 2012, federal and state programs will pay slightly more than half of the nation’s health care costs whether or not any health care reform measures are passed, according to a recent report by the Office of the Actuary of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.1 As expected, the shift to a government-dominated health care sector is approaching faster than expected because of an economy in recession and because of the aging of the baby boomers, millions of whom will soon start signing up for Medicare.

Changes to Medicare’s reimbursement plans have inadvertently cut payments to cancer specialists, causing many cancer care centers to lose money and possibly close, according to results of a study commissioned by the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), an advocacy group for oncologists who practice outside of large hospital centers.1

Owing to the recent senatorial election results in Massachusetts, anticipated health care reform agendas for the United States are undergoing change again as the electorate and Congress struggle with a burgeoning health care system.