Practice Management News

There is a growing amount of evidence to indicate that presidential campaigns and their outcomes can have negative effects on a person’s health, according to a paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

President Donald J. Trump announced on June 1 that the United States will withdraw from the 2015 multinational Paris climate agreement to reduce global warming and the greenhouse effect.

Many of the health care challenges facing the United States, including lack of utilization of preventive care, socioeconomic factors that affect access to and ability to afford health care, and the shortage of primary care clinicians, are affecting residents of rural areas disproportionately.

The proportion of patient care physicians who have an ownership stake in their medical practice dropped below 50%, marking the first time that physician practice owners did not comprise the majority since practice arrangement trends have been documented, according to a new study by the AMA.

THOROFARE, NJ — Charles B. Slack, founder of Charles B. Slack Incorporated, which later became SLACK Incorporated and the Wyanoke Group, publisher of many health care titles including Healio.com, died on May 27 at the age of 87 years.

The presidents of AAFP and AMA have unleashed a new round of criticism regarding the American Health Care Act, the bill initiating the repeal of the Affordable Care Act that narrowly passed the House earlier this month. The groups’ comments come after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation released a report on Wednesday that indicated the House-passed version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) would leave 14 million more people uninsured than under the present law. According to the CBO report, that number would increase to 19 million by 2020 and to 23 million by 2026. The total number of uninsured in 2026 under the age of 65 would be 51 million based on CBO projections.

The Congressional Budget Office — a non-partisan scoring agency — and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation released its cost estimate for the House-passed version of the American Health Care Act and estimated $119 billion in net savings from 2017 to 2026 for the proposed health care plan.

The cost of prescription drugs increased by 8.77% last year, the fourth consecutive year drug prices have gone up, according to data from the Truveris National Drug Index. The company further stated the 2016 increase represents an average annual price increase of 9.98% over the last year 3 years.

Reinstituting high-risk pools as a state option as part of the American Health Care Act that was recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would move health care policy in the United States “a huge step backward,” as it would segregate individuals with preexisting conditions from the broader insurance pool and increase costs for everyone, according to a commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The Trump administration’s proposed 2018 budget would decimate scientific research and innovation while jeopardizing millions of Americans’ access to essential health care and preventive services, according to leaders of national medical organizations.