Medicine & Health articles from April 2005

Medicine & Health archives from April 2005

CMS is on the case as physician spending, Part B premiums rise.(Medicare Physician Spending)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
April 4, 2005... Medicare Part B physician spending continued to increase at a higher rate than expected in 2004. Based on the most recent data, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services actuaries predict that hospital and prescription-drug spending growth...

It's not your father's DM ... it's your grandfather's.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)(disease management )(Medicare Chronic Care Improvement Program)
April 4, 2005... Disease management is changing its stripes, or at least it's developing new ones. With the launch of Medicare's Chronic Care Improvement Program, the industry is developing new methods to work with sicker populations. Phase 1 of Medicare's...

The 45-percent problem ... ER ... solution.(Medicare Financing)
April 4, 2005... A mechanism enacted by Congress in 2003 to force the White House and lawmakers to address rising Medicare costs likely will be triggered in 2007. But analysts predict that the so-called 45-percent trigger won't result in much action. In...

Big changes coming in Medicare payments, cost sharing methods.(Medicare Costs)
April 4, 2005... Health costs keep rising, the large babyboom generation is approaching retirement, and Americans don't want to pay higher taxes. How to keep Medicare from foundering on these shoals.? For now, there's more talk than action. For the future,...

Judge: bridge to Medicare is a bridge too far.(Retiree Health Benefits)(Anita Brody )
April 4, 2005... The federal government may not allow employers to offer a less generous overall package of health coverage to Medicare-eligible retirees than they provide to younger retirees, a Philadelphia judge ruled March 30. Extending the Feb. 4...

Managed care backlash spawns counter backlash.(Employer-Based Coverage)
April 4, 2005... A new report by the Center for Studying Health System Change shows that a growing number of Americans with employer-sponsored coverage are willing to accept more restricted choices in return for lower out-of-pocket costs. The number grew from...

It's anybody's guess what's up for Medicaid when Congress returns.(In Other News)
April 4, 2005... As Congress adjourned for its spring recess two weeks ago, the House had passed legislation seeking at least $20 billion in Medicaid cuts over the next ten years. The Senate had passed a bill that required no cuts but established a federal...

Returning to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is Linda Fishman.(People)(Brief Article)
April 4, 2005... Returning to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is Linda Fishman. She's the new head of CMS's Office of Legislation. Most recently, Fishman was senior health policy advisor at the law firm of Hogan and Hartson, and she's done...

FDA beefs up NSAID warnings, pulls bextra.(Rx Drug Safety)(prescription drugs)(Food and Drug Administration)(Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug )
April 11, 2005... The Food and Drug Administration said April 7 it had requested that Pfizer Inc. voluntarily withdraw its painkiller Bextra from the market, and that the drugmaker had agreed to suspend sales and marketing of the so-called Cox-2 inhibitor in the...

The bad news: unless medical practice is reengineered, I.T. won't help.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)(information technology)
April 11, 2005... Hoping that clinical information technology will help solve a host of health care's quality and safety problems? Not so fast, said many experts at an April 5 Washington forum convened by the National Institute for Health Care Management. ...

Medicare Advantage plans to get 4.8-percent 2006 pay hike.(Medicare Private Plans)
April 11, 2005... Medicare Advantage private health plans will get a 4.8-percent per capita payment increase for 2006, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced April 4. That's down from the 6.6-percent boost plans got for 2005 and the...

CMS seasoned staff going, going, gone?(Medicare Administration)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
April 11, 2005... In a year of budget stringency like this one, it may not mean much in the end. But some Capitol Hill lawmakers have begun sounding alarms about the potential pitfalls of trying to administer the new, more complicated Medicare program that...

Zerhouni: stockholding rule will get a second look.(NIH Conflicts of Interest)(National Institutes of Health)(Elias Zerhouni, MD)
April 11, 2005... After demanding last year that the National Institutes of Health crack down on potential conflicts of interest involving its scientists' finances and outside consulting work, lawmakers are having second thoughts about the very tough rules that...

Murray, Clinton will put hold on Crawford.(Emergency Contraception)(Patty Murray)(Hillary Clinton)(Lester Crawford nomination)
April 11, 2005... Democratic senators Patty Murray (WA) and Hillary Clinton (NY) intend to place a "hold" on President Bush's nomination of Lester Crawford to head the Food and Drug Administration until the agency decides whether to approve the over-the-counter...

AMA says seniors' access to docs in jeopardy.(Medicare Physician Payment)
April 11, 2005... Seniors will lose access to their physicians if Congress does not reverse looming cuts in Medicare physician compensation. That's the case American Medical Association president Edward Hill, MD, made in an April 5 briefing. Based on an AMA...

Specialists rally against proposed imaging standards.(Medical Imaging)
April 11, 2005... Medicare should not impose new accreditation standards on physicians who bill the program for interpreting diagnostic imaging scans, the Coalition for Patient-Centered Imaging said at an April 5 Capitol Hill briefing. The Medicare Payment...

Department of Health and Human Services.(PEOPLE)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... Jennifer Young steps into a new position at the Department of Health and Human Services. She'll be the first to occupy a new job at the department, Acting Senior Counselor for Health Policy. Young, who has held health staff positions for the...

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.(PEOPLE)(Brief Article)
April 11, 2005... New at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in another newly created post, is Dan Schreiner. He'll be Medicare's first ombudsman, a role that Congress created as part of 2003's Medicare Modernization Act. Most recently, Schreiner's...

Public health: are budget shifts the same as budget cuts?(FY 2006 Federal Health Funding)
April 18, 2005... Members of a House appropriations subpanel on health April 12 fretted that the Bush administration's public-health budget, including for pandemic-flu preparation, amounts to a "shell game." The administration's fiscal year 2006 proposal seems...

Long, slow learning curve continues on covering the uninsured.(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
April 18, 2005... With budgets tight, it's anybody's guess when lawmakers will launch another large-scale effort to expand health coverage among the uninsured. Nevertheless, the tens of millions of Americans who lack health insurance remain on the minds of...

Medicaid already wearing caps, experts say.(Medicaid Financing)
April 18, 2005... If Congress enacts a budget resolution requiring major Medicaid cuts. advocates for the poor and disabled, as well as some lawmakers, worry that the government will place hard caps on some federal funding for the mushrooming program. In...

Court removes obstacle to TennCare cuts.(TennCare)
April 18, 2005... A federal appellate court has given Tennessee the go-ahead to remove up to 323,000 adults from the rolls of TennCare, the nation's most expansive Medicaid program that serves over a fifth of the state's population. In an April 12 decision,...

Judge upholds Maine PBM disclosure law.(Pharmacy Benefit Managers)
April 18, 2005... A federal district court judge has upheld Maine's law requiring pharmacy benefit managers to disclose to their clients the deals they make with drugmakers. Maine's Unfair Prescription Drug Practices Act creates a fiduciary duty running...

CMS: SPAPs can't choose preferred drug plans.(State Pharmacy Assistance)(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)
April 18, 2005... State pharmacy assistance programs may not steer their low-income clients into particular Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a March 29 memorandum to state officials and potential PDP...

Medicaid commission idea has GOP Backers in House, too.(IN OTHER NEWS)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Medicaid Commission Idea Has GOP Backers In House, Too. Forty-four of his GOP colleagues are urging House Budget Committee chair Jim Nussle (IA) to remove Medicaid cuts from the chamber's budget resolution. "We are concerned that the...

What he really wants to do is direct, but Crawford will have to act a little longer.(IN OTHER NEWS)(Lester Crawford appointment delayed)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... What He Really Wants To Do Is Direct, But Crawford Will Have To Act A Little Longer. The Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee abruptly cancelled its scheduled April 13 vote on the nomination of Lester Crawford to the permanent...

Long-time top health-care analyst Stuart Guterman is leaving the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to join the Commonwealth Fund's "Medicare's Future" program as senior program director.(PEOPLE)(Brief Article)
April 18, 2005... Long-time top health-care analyst Stuart Guterman is leaving the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to join the Commonwealth Fund's "Medicare's Future" program as senior program director. Guterman has directed CMS' office of research,...

Doctor involvement grows in practice-improvement efforts.(Physician Certification)
April 25, 2005... Move over, hard science. The American Board of Internal Medicine is joining the evidence-into-practice movement, adding practice-performance measures to its recertification requirements for internists certified under ABIM and its 24 affiliated...

Companies cautiously optimistic on Part D; beneficiaries--who knows?(In Medicine & Health Perspectives this week ...)
April 25, 2005... With eight months to go before the Medicare Part D drug benefit launches, analysts everywhere squint into the middle distance, hoping to discern the shape of the program to come. Some features are emerging from the fog, but it's impossible to...

Enzi, centrist Snowe seek Senate compromise on AHPs.(Small Business and the Uninsured)
April 25, 2005... Though their popularity has never reached critical mass in the Senate, association health plans seem to slowly continue gaining support in that body. Notably, centrist Sen. Olympia Snowe (RME), a key figure in many down-to-the-wire legislative...

MedPAC: remove Medicare Advantage advantages.(Medicare Reimbursement)
April 25, 2005... The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission has long been a proponent of a level playing field between fee-for-service Medicare and Medicare Advantage private plans. On April 21, this viewpoint was on display once again as Commission members voted...

ENZI treads cautiously on Rx importation.(Drug Importation)(Mike Enzi)
April 25, 2005... Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) said April 19 that his Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee would move forward on legislation allowing the importation of less-expensive prescription drugs into the United States without the manufacturer's...

At AEI, torts and retorts on med mal premium rises.(Medical Malpractice)
April 25, 2005... The authors of a recent study casting doubt on the efficacy of capping noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases fundamentally misunderstand the way insurers set premiums, Urban Institute researcher Randy Bovbjerg said at a March 31...

Hospitals says HSAs, HRAs thriving ...(Consumer-Driven Plans)(Health Savings Account, Health Reimbursement Arrangement)
April 25, 2005... Participants in so-called consumer-driven health plans need not fear that they will be second-class citizens at the nation's hospitals. That was one key message of a survey released April 20 by the American Hospital Association and the...

Budget, Schmudget. What If They Just Fudge It?(IN OTHER NEWS)(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... Budget, Schmudget. What If They Just Fudge It? Whether Congress will approve a budget resolution and accompanying binding instructions for committees to produce cost-cutting legislation for Medicaid and/or Medicare is still one of the great...

Deputy Secretary at HHS.(PEOPLE)(Brief Article)
April 25, 2005... Health and Human Services Department General Counsel Alex Azar is President Bush's choice to be Deputy Secretary at HHS. Before joining the administration, Azar was a partner at Wiley, Rein, & Fielding, and he clerked for Supreme Court Justice...