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.

A Nation in Pain
This past week, Governor John Kasich of Ohio issued an executive order limiting the amount of opioids doctors and dentists can prescribe to no more than a 7 day supply. Failure to comply could result in disciplinary action, including loss of license. Exceptions exist only for patients with cancer or those enrolled in hospice programs. For all the rest, it represents a hard full stop. No longer will the chronic pain sufferer, the woman status post lumbar back fusion x 3, be able to get a prescription for a month's supply of oxycodone with 3 refills.On the surface this appears to be a reasonable initiativ...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - April 2, 2017 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs

The pitfalls of prior authorization for prescription drugs
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com. One of the things that I dread the most about January 1 is that it’s the start of “prior authorization (PA) season” for prescription medications. It is time consuming and frustrating, plus it often jeopardizes patient safety and quality of care. A recent Viewpoint in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) describes PA programs, including “step therapy,” the requirement that patients try and fail a specific number of preferred drugs before a more expensive covered drug or a non-formulary drug will be approved. The artic...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 29, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/yul-ejnes" rel="tag" > Yul Ejnes, MD < /a > Tags: Meds Medications Source Type: blogs

Did Medical Darwinism Doom the GOP Health Plan?
By MICHAEL L. MILLENSON “We are now contemplating, Heaven save the mark, a bill that would tax the well for the benefit of the ill.” Although the quote reads like it could be part of the Republican repeal-and-replace assault against the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it’s actually from a 1949 editorial in The New York State Journal of Medicine denouncing health insurance itself. Indeed, the attacks on the ACA seem to have revived a survival-of-the-fittest attitude most of us thought had vanished in America long ago. Yet, again and again, there it was in plain sight, as when House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) declared: “T...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 29, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized AHCA Darwin Millenson Ryan Source Type: blogs

Physician Burnout Is A Public Health Crisis: A Message To Our Fellow Health Care CEOs
The Quadruple Aim recognizes that a healthy, energized, engaged, and resilient physician workforce is essential to achieving national health goals of higher quality, more affordable care and better health for the populations we serve. Yet in a recent study of U.S. physicians, more than half reported experiencing at least one symptom of burnout—a substantial increase over previous years—indicating that burnout among physicians is becoming a national health crisis. Leadership is needed to address the root causes of this problem and reposition the health care workforce for the future. The authors of this paper&...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 28, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: John Noseworthy, James Madara, Delos Cosgrove, Mitchell Edgeworth, Ed Ellison, Sarah Krevans, Paul Rothman, Kevin Sowers, Steven Strongwater, David Torchiana and Dean Harrison Tags: Featured Health Professionals Population Health Public Health Quality American Medical Association EHR Physician Burnout physician turnover physician well-being Quadruple Aim Source Type: blogs

Whatever the Question, Transparency Isn ’t the Answer
Many in political (and non-political) circles have blamed a lack of pricing transparency for increasing healthcare costs. However, as recognized in a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, improving transparency is not the answer. More than half of the states in the United States have passed laws that either establish websites with health care prices or require plans, doctors, and hospitals to disclose them to patients. Some employers and other organizations even provide health care prices to employees and the public. However, according to the study, such transparency doesn’t always help pat...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 28, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

Physicians must speak out on heath reform to make a difference for patients
Uncertainty surrounding health system reform and the future of the Affordable Care Act has left many physicians with questions about how current proposals will affect them and their patients. Stakes could not be greater for patients who may again face the stark, life-or-death choices arising from the possible loss of health insurance. As a longtime member of the American Medical Association’s Board of Trustees and a former president of the association, I believe strongly in the campaign to cover the uninsured that the AMA launched in 2006 and I applaud the organization for continuing to pursue this vision in the curr...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 24, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/ardis-d-hoven" rel="tag" > Ardis D. Hoven, MD < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs

Help me help you: I ’m not a politician. I’m just a doctor.
At this point, much has been made of the health care bill the Republican administration has put forth to replace the ACA. We’ve heard the details of the bill, we’ve seen the numbers. We know that the U.S. Congressional Budget Office has forecast that 24 million more people will be uninsured by 2026 if House Representatives replace the ACA with the current bill proposed by the Trump administration. We know that the cost of the Republican plan will fall disproportionately on older Americans, who tend to be sicker and need more health care services than younger people, and we know that the subsidies offered to lower-incom...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 24, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/michelle-au" rel="tag" > Michelle Au, MD < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs

Deloitte Survey on Value-Based Care
We have written for years about the transition in health care from volume-based to value-based payment models. But the process has been a slow one. According to the Deloitte 2016 Survey of US Physicians, a nationally representative sample of 600 US primary care and specialty physicians, confirms the slow pace of adoption of value-based payment models among physicians. Generally, physicians are reluctant to bear financial risk for care delivery. Yet many physicians conceptually endorse some of the principles behind value-based care, such as quality and resource utilization measurement. The survey results suggest that financ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - March 24, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs

High Blood Pressure Has No Minimum
How tall is your child? How much does he or she weigh? Most parents can answer those questions easily. But here’s a tougher question: what is your child’s blood pressure? High blood pressure, or hypertension, is often considered an adult health problem. But this serious condition is no longer adults-only. “The number of children with high blood pressure is rising,” says Susan Mendley, MD, head of the Division of Pediatric Nephrology at the University of Maryland Children’s Hospital and an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “Left unchecked, high blood pressure ca...
Source: Life in a Medical Center - March 22, 2017 Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: UMMC Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

TV Ads Pushed Inappropriate Use of Testosterone
–Study: prescriptions spiked in direct response to blizzard of ‘Low T’ ads Television ads for testosterone products were highly successful, leading to dramatic increases in the number of men taking testosterone drugs, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. J. Bradley Layton (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)...Click here to continue reading... (Source: CardioBrief)
Source: CardioBrief - March 21, 2017 Category: Cardiology Authors: Larry Husten Tags: People, Places & Events Policy & Ethics Prevention, Epidemiology & Outcomes advertising DTCA low-T testosterone Source Type: blogs

Before Thursday ’s ACA repeal and replace vote – a throwback to 2012
Before Thursday’s ACA repeal and replace vote, we’d like to share a post from 2012, when Disruptive Women in Healthcare Founder Robin Strongin moderated a panel held by The Hill at the Republican National Convention on the future of health care policy. Among the panelists were former Sen. Trent Lott; Rep. Tom Price; Dr. Donald Palmisano, MD, JD, former president of the American Medical Association; and Sally Greenberg, Executive Director of the National Consumers League. Check out the recap (with video) of that event: http://www.disruptivewomen.net/2012/09/07/robin-strongin-disrupts-the-rnc/ (Source: D...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - March 21, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

The fundamental problem with the American Health Care Act
As the immediate past-president of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM), the major professional association of academic general internists, I participated in SGIM’s Hill Day on March 8, 2017. Hill Day is when an organization mobilizes its members to visit the offices of Senators and Congresspersons on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC to discuss key issues. Coincidentally, March 8 was also the day two House Committees began deliberations on the American Health Care Act (AHCA), and the day the American Medical Association (AMA) publicly voiced strong opposition to the proposed legislation. SGIM focused its H...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 16, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/marshall-chin" rel="tag" > Marshall Chin, MD, MPH < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs

The AMA ’s letter on the American Health Care Act was too narrowly focused
I am a member of the American Medical Association and chair the Delegation from the Florida Medical Association. As an advocate for the medical profession, I am very proud of the work that we do, but I also realize that much more is needed. In particular, we desperately need to address the growing disconnect between the AMA and the broader physician community. This disconnect is one of the key reasons why the AMA has struggled to attract members and live up to its potential as a voice for all physicians. An excellent summary of this ongoing problem was written by former JAMA editor George Lundberg in the Medscape article t...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 15, 2017 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/corey-howard" rel="tag" > Corey Howard, MD < /a > Tags: Policy Health reform Source Type: blogs

Epic and Other EHR Vendors Caught in Dilemmas by APIs (Part 1 of 2)
The HITECH act of 2009 (part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) gave an unprecedented boost to an obscure corner of the IT industry that produced electronic health records. For the next eight years they were given the opportunity to bring health care into the 21st century and implement common-sense reforms in data sharing and analytics. They largely squandered this opportunity, amassing hundreds of millions of dollars while watching health care costs ascend into the stratosphere, and preening themselves over modest improvements in their poorly functioning systems. This was not solely a failure of EHR vendors, o...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - March 15, 2017 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: EHR Electronic Health Record Electronic Medical Record EMR Healthcare Healthcare Interoperability HealthCare IT API Datica Epic Epic API Epic EHR Epic Orchard FHIR SMART Travis Good Source Type: blogs

A Call To The Palliative Care Community For A Patient-Centered Response To Medical Aid In Dying
During the past 20 years, the end-of-life care community has devoted its energy, resources, and time into developing the medical sub-specialty of palliative medicine and promoting integration of palliative modalities into treatment of advanced illness. Progress continues toward twin goals of providing relief from the symptoms and stress of a serious illness and improving the quality of life for both patient and family. As the leading resource for palliative care development and growth, the Center to Advance Palliative Care notes that, “Palliative care sees the person beyond the disease. It represents a paradigm shift in ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - March 15, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Barbara Coombs Lee and Kim Callinan Tags: End of Life & Serious Illness Quality End-of-Life Care hospice medical aid in dying Palliative Care Source Type: blogs