March 2008

(03/27/2008)  --  Family physicians must continue to be the cornerstone of the American health care system. We must achieve better payment rates. We must attract the next generation of family physicians to our residency programs. So asserts an editorial in the March Journal of Family Practice. But then, to my puzzlement, the editorial criticizes the AAFP's new vigor in championing the specialty's issues with government, employers and private-sector payers -- a vigor telegraphed by the AAFP's new brand identity, embodied by the new AAFP seal and the tag line "Strong Medicine for America." More (Members Only)

(03/26/2008)  --  After a six-month delay, CMS will start requiring physicians to use tamper-resistant prescription pads when prescribing for Medicaid patients beginning April 1. More

(03/26/2008)  --  More than 99,300 health care providers took advantage of the opportunity to participate in CMS' voluntary Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, or PQRI, in 2007, according to preliminary data CMS recently provided to the Senate Finance Committee. That's about 16 percent of all professionals who were eligible to participate. More (Members Only)

(03/25/2008)  --  The AAFP is rallying support for a Senate bill that would block steep reductions in Medicare physician payment rates for the latter half of this year and all of 2009 while giving Congress enough time to devise an alternative to the sustainable growth rate, or SGR, formula. (Discuss this story on the AAFP News Now bulletin board.) More

(03/25/2008)  --  Patients don't always understand why their physician has ordered a particular laboratory test. Similarly, patients don't always appreciate the role of clinical testing in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Now a Web-based resource -- Lab Tests Online -- can help balance a patient's need for information and the time constraints of a busy medical practice. More

(03/24/2008)  --  The AAFP lobbied Congress aggressively throughout 2007 to permanently fix the sustainable growth rate, or SGR, formula, to which Medicare physician payment is tied. In late December, Congress staved off a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians set to take effect for 2008 under the SGR formula, replacing it with a 0.5 percent increase for the first six months of the year. However, Medicare physician payment is once again on the chopping block as, barring action by Congress, that 10.6 percent cut is scheduled to go into effect on July 1. More (Members Only)

(03/24/2008)  --  If you've been considering the idea of presenting a paper or poster on research you've conducted in your practice or academic setting at this year's AAFP Scientific Assembly, but you haven't yet made the decision to forge ahead, don't delay any longer. The cutoff to submit your application, April 18, is coming up fast. More

(03/20/2008)  --  Increasingly, medical students get it. A growing number of them realize that the future is family medicine when it comes to practicing the way they want to practice, including by providing a patient-centered medical home, improving the health of their communities, and alleviating health disparities among ethnic and racial minority groups. More (Members Only)

(03/20/2008)  --  Interest in family medicine among U.S. medical students surged in 2008, and evidence of that growth came on March 20 when the National Resident Matching Program, or NRMP, announced the 2008 Match results. More

(03/20/2008)  --  Finding better ways to educate patients with diabetes and manage their disease could prove beneficial to family physicians, who often are the first line of defense against the disease. A recently published study that suggests diabetes counseling, management and patient education should be presented differently to men and women could help FPs in their efforts. More

(03/20/2008)  --  The nation's community health centers, or CHCs, have launched a campaign aimed at providing billions of dollars' worth of resources to the centers to help them serve as many as 30 million patients by 2015. More

(03/20/2008)  --  The AAFP responded quickly when U.S. presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., linked autism to vaccines in statements he made during a town hall meeting in Texas on Feb. 29. More

(03/20/2008)  --  A follow-up study from the Women’s Health Initiative, or WHI, combination hormone therapy trial has found that women who use estrogen plus progestin on a long-term basis can incur multiple risks that persist even after the therapy has been stopped. Specifically, the researchers found that nearly three years after combination therapy was halted, many of the adverse health effects seen during the intervention, such as increased cardiovascular risks, dissipated. Other effects, however, such as the increased risk of developing breast cancer, persisted well after treatment was stopped. More

(03/19/2008)  --  The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, or MedPAC, is considering sending Congress a number of recommendations that call for, among other things, an increase in Medicare payments for physicians who provide primary care services and implementation of a medical home pilot project to better coordinate and improve care for Medicare beneficiaries. More

(03/17/2008)  --  The health care proposals put forth by the leading presidential candidates may differ sharply in their approaches to health care reform, but the common factor among them is that none of the plans represents a profound or fundamental change to the nation's health care system. More

(03/12/2008)  --  Practical strategies for patient-doctor communication are highlighted in a new Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, or AHRQ, consumer video that features AAFP Board Chair Rick Kellerman, M.D., of Wichita, Kan. More

(03/12/2008)  --  Physician practices across the country are beginning to limit the care they provide for Medicare patients as Medicare physician payments fail to keep pace with the cost of providing health care to seniors. More

(03/12/2008)  --  A study recently published in BMJ raises questions about the overall safety of calcium supplementation in healthy postmenopausal women. The results of the study, titled "Vascular events in healthy older women receiving calcium supplementation: randomized controlled trial," suggest a link between calcium supplementation and increased rates of adverse cardiovascular events in postmenopausal women. More

(03/12/2008)  --  U.S. medical schools could significantly increase the number of rural physicians by establishing programs that encourage physicians to practice in rural areas, according to a report in the March issue of Academic Medicine. The study, conducted by researchers in the department of family and community medicine at the Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, found that the nation's medical schools could more than double the number of physicians choosing rural practice annually by creating rural physician programs that would turn out as few as 10 students per class. More

(03/10/2008)  --  Many patients, particularly older patients, have their blood cholesterol checked regularly, but some may not understand why. Because these patients might not have any unusual symptoms, they may view the tests as a waste of their time and money. To help such patients understand the value of blood cholesterol screening, the NIH has added information on the topic to NIHSeniorHealth.gov, a patient information Web site designed especially for seniors. More

(03/08/2008)  --  The appearance of the Academy's Web site has been transformed to reflect the AAFP's "bold champion" brand that launched last October. The redesigned Web site has a cleaner, more contemporary look that uses the new AAFP seal and colors related to the new brand identity, says Leigh McKinney, director of AAFP's Online and Custom Publishing Division. More

(03/06/2008)  --  On March 4, the AAFP and four other national physician organizations launched a new program designed to help physicians send prescriptions to pharmacies electronically. The "Get Connected" program features a Web site where physicians can assess their e-prescribing readiness and learn, step-by-step, what needs to be done to make e-prescribing a reality in their practices. More

(03/05/2008)  --  For a typical family medicine practice, administering immunizations is part and parcel of the everyday routine -- especially when it comes to youngsters who've come in for their well-child visits. So, deciding to forgo a key piece of the recommended childhood immunization schedule may seem counterintuitive. In the face of an ongoing shortage of Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, conjugate vaccine, however, the CDC is reminding vaccine providers about an interim recommendation that urges temporary deferral of the Hib vaccine booster usually given to healthy children at the 12- or 15-month visit except for certain high-risk children. More

(03/05/2008)  --  New York City is moving ahead with plans to equip more than 1,000 primary care physician offices with electronic health records, or EHRs, by the end of this year -- that's enough practices to cover about 1 million patients. More

(03/05/2008)  --  If you're considering pharmacological therapy for a patient with dementia, be aware that there's only modest evidence of clinically meaningful benefit for the average patient. Therefore, conduct an individualized assessment of your patient and his or her situation, in consultation with caregivers, to determine if a trial of drug therapy is appropriate. If you decide to prescribe, choose one of the five FDA-approved drugs for dementia based on cost, ease of use, tolerability and side effects, because currently there's no convincing evidence that any one of the drugs is more effective than another. More

(03/05/2008)  --  Tens of thousands of health care providers -- some of them family physicians -- will collect a little extra cash later in 2008 because of their participation in CMS' 2007 Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, or PQRI. That's according to preliminary data recently released by CMS in response to an inquiry from Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chair of the Senate Finance Committee, about the initiative's progress. More

(03/04/2008)  --  The diverse member organizations of the Partnership for Medicaid, including founding member AAFP, are urging Congress to block several proposed and current CMS regulations that would terminate coverage for thousands of recipients now covered by Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by tightening eligibility requirements for the two programs. More

(03/04/2008)  --  Primary care physicians should not screen asymptomatic pregnant women at low risk for preterm delivery for bacterial vaginosis, according to guidance recently issued by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, or USPSTF. The task force also concluded that currently available evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for bacterial vaginosis in asymptomatic pregnant women at high risk for preterm delivery. The recommendations and supporting documents are available online. More