American Medical Association (AMA) Blogs This is an RSS file. You can use it to subscribe to this data in your favourite RSS reader or to display this data on your own website or blog.

Negotiated Rates: What No One Talks About in Health Care Legislation
Last week, the House of Representatives passed legislation for the American Health Care Act, the first step in repealing the Affordable Care Act, or as some would call it, Trumpcare versus Obamacare. The American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association (and many other medical societies) oppose the new legislation. An enormous concern is that the new legislation won't require insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions, or require coverage for mental health treatment or prenatal/maternity care. Over the coming years, the new legislation is predicted to leave 24 million more Ame...
Source: Shrink Rap - May 7, 2017 Category: Psychiatry Authors: Dinah Source Type: blogs

Opioid addiction: Long-term treatment for a chronic condition
In 2015, motor vehicle accidents claimed the lives of more than 35,000 Americans. Sadly, the toll exacted by motor vehicle accidents has now been eclipsed. Data from the American Society of Addiction Medicine show that more than 52,000 of we Americans lost our lives to opioid overdose in 2015. Here in the Commonwealth, the story is even more grim; even accounting for differences in average age from community to community — younger people are still more likely to be affected than older people — the opioid overdose death rate has climbed to 23 per 100,000 residents as compared to 9 per 100,000 for the nation as a whole. ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 5, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Glen Buchberger, MD Tags: Addiction Behavioral Health Brain and cognitive health Drugs and Supplements Source Type: blogs

How America Dropped the Ball on Sports Concussions
By JASON CHUNG & AMANDA ZINK As GOP lawmakers grapple with the “replace” aspect of Obamacare and seek to overhaul the subject “nobody knew could be so complicated,” we must remember that one of the best ways to reduce spiraling healthcare costs is to improve health through preventive measures. For instance, increased participation in youth sports would help control rising obesity and sedentary rates which are responsible for 21% of annual medical spending – a staggering $190.2 billion a year. Inactivity among youth spiked from 20% in 2014 to 37.1% in 2015. But while the NIH identifies preventing weight gain ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 3, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: OP-ED Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

What JAMA's Editors Failed to Disclose
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."- from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare An entire journal dedicated to a discussion of conflicts of interest was published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). There is remarkable irony when the executive editor and editor in chief of JAMA fail to disclose JAMA's ownership by the American Medical Assocat ion (AMA), a 501(c (Source: Dr. Wes)
Source: Dr. Wes - May 3, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Westby G. Fisher, MD Source Type: blogs

The Doctor Will Connect With You Now
By JOSEPH KVEDAR, MD One of my advisors has a great perspective on healthcare delivery from the large system perspective. He served as the chief of staff to our last CEO. Recently, he posed an incisive question to me.: “Joe, when are we going to take all of these digital health concepts from the 30,000 foot level and get them into that 10 minute window that the doctor has with the patient?” It is not hyperbole to say that this put the last 20+ years of my career in a whole different perspective. I remember in the early 1990s, when it seemed we were just getting used to a new tool called voicemail. Fax machines...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 1, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

Medical students are the future of health policy, let ’s start treating them like it
The media is quick to point out the important role of American Medical Association (AMA) and other professional bodies in shaping the future of health policy in the United States. While these organizations have a certain responsibility, it is becoming increasing clear that medical and public health students will shape the future of post-Obama health care landscape. Recognizing their role is pertinent. While physician members from AMA are the practitioners of the health care, it is the students in lecture halls around the country that are vital for the formulation as well as the execution of health care policies. It is esse...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 1, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/junaid-nabi" rel="tag" > Junaid Nabi, MD < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs

Students are the future of health policy: Let ’s start treating them like it
The media is quick to point out the important role of American Medical Association (AMA) and other professional bodies in shaping the future of health policy in the United States. While these organizations have a certain responsibility, it is becoming increasing clear that medical and public health students will shape the future of post-Obama health care landscape. Recognizing their role is pertinent. While physician members from AMA are the practitioners of the health care, it is the students in lecture halls around the country that are vital for the formulation as well as the execution of health care policies. It is esse...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 1, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/junaid-nabi" rel="tag" > Junaid Nabi, MD < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs

AMA and ACCME Announce Call for Comment on Proposal
Yesterday, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) issued a call for comment on their joint proposal to simplify and align their expectations for accredited continuing medical education (CME) activities that offer the AMA PRA Category One CreditTM. The proposal for alignment attempts to encourage innovation and flexibility in accredited CME, while continuing to ensure that activities meet educational standards and are independent of commercial influence. The proposal is aimed at allowing accredited CME providers to introduce and blend new instructional ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - April 26, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

AMA Releases Satisfaction and Stress Survey Results of Physicians
At the end of March 2017, the American Medical Association (AMA) released survey findings that explored the experiences, perceptions, and challenges that are currently facing physicians in the current healthcare environment. 1,200 physicians, residents, and medical students (400 of each) participated in the online survey, which when respondents knew they would become physicians, who encouraged them down that path, what challenges they face professionally, and whether they are satisfied with their career choice. According to the survey, nine in ten physicians are satisfied with their career choice, despite challenges comm...
Source: Policy and Medicine - April 25, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

Executioner/Doctor
There was a very badop-ed published in the NY TimesSaturday by the writer/cardiologist, Dr. Sandeep Jauhar. It's called "Why It's OK for Doctors to Participate in Executions" and that pretty much tells you all you need know. If you were to read something online entitled "Why It's OK for Rapists to Babysit Your Child" you would feel the same filthy layer of scum descend upon your skin as I felt when I read Dr Jauhar's inexplicable ode to Doctors of Death.The piece comes on the heels of a recent decision by the good ol' state of Arkansas to execute 8 men on death row over the next 11 days--- not because their ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - April 23, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs

Sweet Revenge
We have learned in the last few months that nearly 5 decades of research on heath and nutrition were shaped and directed by the sugar industry. We now understand that fat was wrongly demonized for commercial gain and that sugar consumption–the real cause underlying the surge in type 2 diabetes, weight gain/obesity, heart disease, dementia, and some forms of cancer–was essentially allowed to balloon in the American diet. You can read about this on your own here: From the New York Times From the Journal of the American Medical Association It is part of our mission to make the natural sweeteners in Virtue Sweet...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - April 17, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: News & Updates Source Type: blogs

Pontifications About Health Care Reform Written by Insiders Who Benefit from the Status Quo - Worse Than We Think
Perceptions that the US health care system is dysfunctional and needs major reform go way back. Atimeline from the Tampa Bay Times noted President Theodore Roosevelt ' s proposal for a national health service in 1912. Nonetheless, as we have discussed endlessly, most attempts at reform failed, and health care dysfunction seems to be getting worse.One big problem may be that we don ' t understand how much discussion of health care reform is driven by those who benefit from the status quo. A Personal AnecdoteWhen I began my academic career in 1983, I was often in the audience for talks about how to fix healt...
Source: Health Care Renewal - April 17, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: Amgen conflicts of interest deception health care reform Institute of Medicine Mayo Clinic Merck National Academies public relations Source Type: blogs

When the Patient is a Racist
By JULIE KIM, MD Something has changed. In my first 16 years in practice, I received exactly one insensitive comment from a young child who had never seen an Asian in person. But in the last year, I have received a hateful, bigoted comment approximately every other month. (That includes the remarks by a person who tried to reassure me that the comments were not directed to me personally, but to the “other illegals.”) My colleagues are experiencing an increase in bigoted comments too. A fellow physician, a southeast Asian man, says he has been called “Dr. Bin Laden” on several occasions recently. Last September, one...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 8, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

Part of the Solution, or Part of the Problem? - Health Care Corporate CEOs on Physician Burnout
Physician burnout is in the news again. Late in 2015, an article by Shaneyfelt and colleagues in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings showed an increase in the proportion of physicians reporting at least one symptom of burnout to 54.4% in 2014(1), up from the 45.5% they reported in 2012(2). A March 28, 2017,post in the Health Affairs blog based on the latest article warning about burnout and suggesting how to address it got considerable attention.Background - Physician BurnoutHowever, physician burnout is hardly new. As wewrote in 2012 about the predecessor the 2012 Shaneyfelt article, this is just the latest in a...
Source: Health Care Renewal - April 2, 2017 Category: Health Management Tags: burnout conflicts of interest corporate physician generic management governance leadership managerialism mission-hostile management physicians Source Type: blogs