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Total 58 results found since Jan 2013.
Conflicts of Interest: When Should We Pay Attention
We have previously written about financial conflicts of interest and whether physicians can disseminate impartial scientific information if they have a conflict of interest, or if the conflict of interest negates anything the physician (or other medical professional) says. With the introduction of Open Payments and other copy-cat systems around the world, this idea continues to get more dangerous as days go on.
In February 2018, the Baltimore Sun published an article by a family physician who drew pause at the fact that the new blood pressure guidelines published by the American College of Cardiology and the American Hear...
Source: Policy and Medicine - April 10, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Education at ACC Chapter Meetings Positively Impacts Management of Severe or Resistant Hypercholesterolemia: Preliminary Results
Despite guideline-directed statin therapy, the majority of patients with severe hypercholesterolemia and other high-risk populations continue to have a substantial residual risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). In patients with severe or resistant hypercholesterolemia, new and emerging treatments to reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) offer additional options to control CVD risk.
To address the gap in care of patients with severe or resistant hypercholesterolemia and enhance awareness about emerging agents, an educational series comprised of five 1-hour lectures was developed by a steering committee of two ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - January 29, 2017 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Open Payments Discussed at MedPAC November Meeting
The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission meets publicly in Washington, D.C. to discuss various Medicare issues and policy questions, as well as to develop and approve reports and recommendations to Congress. During the November public meeting, Ariel Winter and Amy Phillips discussed, “Payments from drug and device manufacturers to physicians and teaching hospitals, 2015.”
Ms. Winter and Ms. Phillips discussed the background and description of the Open Payments (public reporting) program, results of their analysis of 2015 data from Open Payments, as well as possible future changes to Open Payments.
Background
The pai...
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 20, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
CMS Issues Final Rule on CY 2017 Physician Fee Schedule
Conclusion
The CY 2017 PFS final rule is the latest showing of the Administration-wide strategy to create a health care system that results in better care, smarter spending, and a healthier population.
Related StoriesOpen Payments Having an Adverse Effect on Physician-Rep RelationshipsCMS Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Evaluation ReleasedCMS Releases MA and Part D Landscape Information for 2017
Source: Policy and Medicine - November 2, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
FDA Issues Draft Guidance on Real-World Data
In September, FDA issued a draft guidance to clarify how it evaluates real-world data to determine whether it can be used in FDA regulatory decision-making for medical devices. The guidance explains how FDA will use data collected outside of traditional clinical trials, such as electronic health records and registries, as a part of the medical device process. This data, as the guidance explains, is only appropriate if it represents the population being studied.
Introduction to Real-World Data (RWD) and Real-World Evidence (RWE)
The guidance outlines the FDA’s definition of these terms, considering real-world data (RWD)...
Source: Policy and Medicine - October 10, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
The National MACRA MIPS/APM Summit
will be held November 30, 2016 through December 2, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.
The summit boasts a lengthy list of keynote speakers, including: Michael Leavitt, Founder and Chairman of Leavitt Partners; Robert J. Margolis, MD, the Founder of the Robert and Lisa Margolis Family Foundation, Duke-Robert J. Margolis, MD, Center for Health Policy; Richard N. Merkin, MD, the Founder, President, and CEO of Heritage Medical Systems; Farzad Mostashari, MPH, MD, Co-Founder and CEO of Aledade; Samuel R. Nussbaum, Chair of the Alternative Payment Model Framework and Progress Tracking Work Group, He...
Source: Policy and Medicine - September 11, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Surgeon General Sends Out Letter on Opioids
The United States Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, M.D., M.B.A., penned a letter in August 2016 that he sent to doctors throughout the country. The letter starts out, “asking for your help to solve an urgent health crisis facing America: the opioid epidemic.”
In the letter, Murthy notes that “it is important to recognize that we arrived at this place on a path paved with good intentions” and that nearly twenty years ago, “we were encouraged to be more aggressive about treating pain, often without enough training and support to do so safely.” Murthy believes that that aggression, combined with heavy marketing ...
Source: Policy and Medicine - September 7, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
New Study on Physician-Industry Relationships, This Time Focused on Ophthalmologists
This study, published by JAMA Ophthalmology, compared the use of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) intravitreal injections by United States ophthalmologists to industry payments those same physicians received.
Once again, the authors behind the study acknowledged that “Although the data can’t confirm a cause and effect, [they] found a positive association between reported pharmaceutical payments and increased use of drugs prescribed to treat problems of the retina.”
This study reviewed data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) 2013 Medicare Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Ph...
Source: Policy and Medicine - September 6, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Another Day, Another BMJ Study on Payments to Physicians
This study focused on oral anticoagulants, or blood thinners, and non-insulin drugs used to treat diabetes. The study found that when a pharmaceutical company spends $13 on a physician, that company will later see ninety-four additional days of prescriptions for brand-name anticoagulants and an additional 107 days of prescribing brand-name drugs to treat diabetes.
The study examined nearly 46 million prescriptions to roughly 10.5 million Medicare recipients, using Open Payments and Medicare Part D prescribing data for two classes of commonly prescribed, commonly marketed drugs: oral anticoagulants and non-insulin diabetes...
Source: Policy and Medicine - September 5, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
CMS Hosts Special Open Door Forum
On Tuesday, August 2, 2016, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) hosted a Special Open Door Forum. The Special Open Door Forum was hosted for the CMS to obtain input from Open Payments stakeholders to inform future rulemaking and other enhancements to the program.
CMS is not currently under any statutory deadline or implementation schedule that is forcing the agency to make any changes to the current rule. However, stakeholder feedback is valued as CMS continues to move forward in enhancing the Open Payments system and refining the reporting requirements. According to CMS, the “focus is on increasing e...
Source: Policy and Medicine - August 3, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
AMA, AAFP and Medical Societies Support Senate Bill Promoting CME Exemption in Open Payments
A long list of over one hundred specialty groups and state medical societies penned a joint letter to Senator John Barrasso expressing their “strong support” for S. 2978, the Senate bill that would exempt certain continuing medical education (CME) from Sunshine Act reporting requirements. Among the lengthy list of groups signing the letter were groups such as the: American Medical Association, American College of Cardiology, American Academy of Family Physicians, and Medical Society of the District of Columbia.
The groups note that the enactment of the senate bill would “protect the dissemination of peer and indepen...
Source: Policy and Medicine - July 13, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
CMS Proposed Physician Fee Schedule 2017 – Includes Open Payments Questions
CMS released its proposed Physician Fee Schedule on July 7, including a section on Open Payments. CMS notes it does not intend to finalize any requirements related to Open Payments directly as a result of this proposed rule. However, CMS does indicate it may undertake future rulemaking that will impact Open Payments.
The proposed rule can be found here, along with its page on the Federal Register website on July 15th. The CMS Proposed Physician Fee Schedule 2017 - Open Payments Section can be downloaded. Comments are due to CMS by 5 p.m. on September 6, 2016. When commenting, refer to file code CMS-1654-P. Comments...
Source: Policy and Medicine - July 7, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
CMS Proposed Patient Relationship Categories for MACRA
Patient engagement and patient satisfaction have been a core principle of healthcare reform under ACA and MACRA. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released for public comment its proposed physician-patient relationship categories, a first step toward a Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) requirement that the agency establish classification code sets for such physician-patient relationships. The patient relationship categories and codes are intended to help CMS more effectively measure resource use, a major performance category under the Merit-based Incentive Payment Syst...
Source: Policy and Medicine - May 18, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
The American College of Cardiology Scientific Session on MACRA
The American College of Cardiology recently held the 65th Annual Scientific Session and Expo, where several sessions focused on the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). During the session it was clear that CMS's intention was to only accept ACO's that accept risk in the APM model payments.
Piecing Together the MACRA Puzzle
One session, entitled Piecing Together the MACRA Puzzle, was hosted by Robert Furno, Nancy Foster, and Harold Miller. This session started out with a broad overview of the MACRA program, followed by a presentation on how hospitals are preparing for MACRA, and then a presentat...
Source: Policy and Medicine - May 12, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
Medicare Access and Chip Reauthorization Act (MACRA) Proposed Rule, MIPS, APM’s and Advanced Care Information
Discussion
Welcome news is the elimination of the all or nothing criteria of the meaningful use program. The exclusion of most ACO's under Medicare shared shavings is probably the most controversial part of the proposed rule as health systems have invested millions in the current Medicare shared savings program. That CMS is estimating that 87% of solo practitioners will be paying a penalty will also not be well received. Under MIPS CMS is estimating that non MD providers with the exception of nurse practitioners and physician assistants fare the worst including Chiropractors, Podiatrists and Dentists. Overall the propose...
Source: Policy and Medicine - April 28, 2016 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan - Policy & Medicine Writing Staff Source Type: blogs
