As healthcare reform expands coverage, nonphysician providers are seeking to expand their portfolio of licensed services and are facing intense opposition from doctors to their efforts.
In California, three bills before the Legislature propose to expand the scope of practice for nurse practitioners, optometrists and pharmacists, with one bill advancing and two bills being stalled.
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Wender
Dr. Richard Wender has been hired by the American Cancer Society to work in the newly created position of chief cancer control officer.
Wender, the first primary-care physician to serve as ACS president, will focus on the organization's consumer and clinical guidance on cancer prevention and early detection as well as the implementation of its evidence-based cancer-control interventions, according to a news release.
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There has been significant progress in getting health information technology systems to talk to one another, according to a new study on interoperability by HHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
The study, “Hospital Electronic Health Information Exchange Grew Substantially in 2008-12,” was published in the August issue of the policy journal Health Affairs. The report was written by five ONC staffers, including the lead author, Michael Furukawa, director of the ONC's Office of Economic Analysis, Evaluate and Modeling, and contributor Dr. Farzad Mostashari, the ONC chief.
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A prominent organization representing internal medicine physicians has launched a public relations campaign to, well, tell the public what internal medicine physicians do.
For one thing, the Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians, with 137,000 members, wants the public to understand that there is a big difference between internists and interns. One is a board-certified doctor of internal medicine, while the other is medical school graduate in his or her first year of post-graduate training. Who knew?
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Medical journals and healthcare publications may soon notice more readers taking deep research dives into their archives looking for old studies, reports and articles on defensive medicine. That's because California's landmark 1975 Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act—which limits pain and suffering damages in medical malpractice lawsuits to $250,000—is coming under fire from two fronts.
The Consumer Watchdog organization and “medical negligence survivors” are working to get the Troy and Alana Pack Patient Safety Act, a ballot initiative, on the November ballot. Named after the children killed in a 2003 accident, the measure would require hospitals to subject physicians to random drug and alcohol testing, require mandatory testing after an unexpected death or serious injury, and adjust the $250,000 cap for inflation. That would raise the cap to $1.1 million. It needs to get about 750,000 signatures to get on the ballot.
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Most Massachusetts residents are satisfied with their healthcare under the state's Obamacare-like system, and despite occasional long waits to see a physician, cost appears to be their main concern, according to a survey conducted by the Massachusetts Medical Society.
Seven years into the Massachusetts's so-called Romneycare reform model—the inspiration for the federal healthcare law—Massachusetts is often seen as a harbinger of things to come for the national reform experience.
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Before there can be patient-generated data, there have to be patients willing and able to provide it and tools to capture, communicate, receive and present it. That's where Dr. Susan Woods comes in.
“My focus is really on the patient's and the caregiver's use of electronic tools and on making value for patients in using these tools,” said Woods, who is the director of patient experience for the Veterans Health Administration.
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Stark
The healthcare world is populated by scores of legal experts who strive to keep up with the sprawling compendium of statutes, regulations and legal advisories known collectively as the “Stark law.” But the law's father, Fortney “Pete” Stark, is not one of them.
Stark, in fact, says he would favor repealing the law as it currently exists and getting back to the law's initial intent.
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Wachter
Dr. Robert Wachter, a pioneer in the field of hospitalist medicine, has been elected to board of directors of IPC the Hospitalist Co., a North Hollywood, Calif.-based hospital medicine and physician group practice company operating in 28 states.
Wachter, a professor and associate chair at the University of California at San Francisco who just finished his term as chairman of the American Board of Internal Medicine, will chair the IPC board's quality committee.
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It's Christmas in July for Medicare-participating physicians—though the gift is far from being delivered. On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed bipartisan legislation to repeal Medicare's sustainable growth-rate formula and replace it with a stable system of payments to the nation's physicians.
For years, Congress has waited until the end of the calendar year to stave off a steep Medicare payment cut to physicians with a temporary fix.
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It's Christmas in July for Medicare-participating physicians—though the gift is far from being delivered. On Wednesday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed bipartisan legislation to repeal Medicare's sustainable growth-rate formula and replace it with a stable system of payments to the nation's physicians.
For years, Congress has waited until the end of the calendar year to stave off a steep Medicare payment cut to physicians with a temporary fix.
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