AAFP News Now

Congressional Representatives Provide Differing Views on Health Care Reform
If the Supreme Court rules that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional, Congress will work on retaining certain provisions in the law that enjoy bipartisan support. That was one of the main messages delivered by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., in the keynote address at this year's Family Medicine Congressional Conference May 14-15 in Washington. McMorris Rodgers told the nearly 200 family physicians at the conference that Congress is trying to anticipate how the Supreme Court might rule on the Affordable Care Act. "Should the Supreme Court rule that any part of the health care (law) is unconstitutional, we (Congress) are prepared to move forward immediately to try and prevent some of the chaos in the marketplace," said McMorris Rodgers.
5/16/2012

Text Message Reminders Could Improve Vaccination Rates, Study Suggests
Text messaging has the potential to improve vaccination rates in low-income urban settings, says a study recently published in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. In a randomized, controlled trial involving more than 9,000 children and adolescents ages 6 months to 18 years, parents of children randomized to the intervention group received as many as five weekly immunization registry-linked text messages that provided educational information and instructions regarding Saturday immunization clinics.
5/16/2012

Health Care Could Save Billions by Reducing Waste in Six Key Areas, Says Article
The U.S. health care system could save hundreds of billions of dollars each year in public and private health care expenditures by adopting strategies to reduce waste in six key categories that are major drivers of health care costs. That's the conclusion of an article by former CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, M.D., and Andrew Hackbarth, M.Phil., an assistant policy analyst at the RAND Corp., in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association. "In just six categories of waste -- overtreatment, failures of care coordination, failures in execution of care processes, administrative complexity, pricing failures, and fraud and abuse -- the sum of the lowest available estimates exceeds 20 percent of total health care expenditures," say the authors. "The actual total may be far greater."
5/16/2012

Working With Others Key to Successfully Transforming Our Practices
Good partners can make all the difference when transforming a practice. For example, one of the family physicians in my practice, Andrew Drabick, M.D., was so concerned about the obesity problem in our community that he led our efforts to open a weight loss clinic. Many of our patients found the extra help they needed, and we added an important revenue stream. One of my other partners, Stephen Moore, M.D., is passionate about practicing family medicine, but he has little desire to be involved in the business of medicine. Stephen puts his trust in others to make sure we are running a sound business. I also love being a family physician, but I have the interest in business that my partner lacks. Together, we provide balance to a practice that has expanded three times in a little more than five years.
5/16/2012

News in Brief: Week of May 14-18
This roundup includes the following news briefs: Download Free Guide on Maintaining Privacy, Security of EHRs; Study Documents Decline in Health Care Access for U.S. Adults; and FDA Warns Against Multiple Sclerosis Treatment.
5/16/2012

AAFP Cries Foul Over Prescription Requirements for OTC Medications
Many FPs and their patients were surprised to learn in January that a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act required a physician's prescription to use funds from tax-preferred health accounts to purchase OTC items. Now, the AAFP has joined with dozens of other organizations in calling on Congress to repeal the provision, which "increases costs to the health care system and places a new administrative burden on already overburdened physician offices," according to members of the Health Choices Coalition, of which the AAFP is a member. In an April 25 letter to the House Ways and Means Committee, the coalition said the provision has "resulted in unintended consequences to both physicians and patients."
5/15/2012

Fluoroquinolones May Increase Risk for Retinal Detachment, Study Finds
Before signing off on that prescription for a fluoroquinolone, family physicians may wish to consider an alternative, as yet another possible side effect has surfaced for patients who take these broad-spectrum antibiotics. According to a study published last month in JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), patients who take fluoroquinolones are at increased risk for retinal detachment.
5/15/2012

AAFP.org Coming Soon to a Mobile Device Near You
When it comes to interacting with for-profit companies, consumers expect to be able to do just about anything -- banking, downloading music, paying bills, shopping or even making dinner reservations -- via their mobile device. Although most nonprofit companies aren't quite as advanced in mobile technology, the AAFP is working on making it possible for us to engage with the Academy on our smartphones or tablet computers as easily as when we buy something on Amazon.com.
5/14/2012

Proposed Increase in Medicaid Payments Helps Patients and Docs Both
Thirty-six percent of AAFP members do not accept new Medicaid patients, and nearly 20 percent don't see Medicaid patients at all, according to a 2011 member survey. Considering that in 2008, Medicaid paid an average of 34 percent less than Medicare for primary care services, those numbers aren't surprising. In nine states, the difference was more than 40 percent. However, that sizable gap between the two programs will disappear starting in January.
5/11/2012

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