AAMC expresses supports for new
Medicare payment legislation
On Oct. 15, AAMC President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., sent
a letter
of support for a new bill that repeals Medicare's Sustainable Growth
Rate (SGR) methodology. The Senate is expected to take up the bill,
which was introduced last Wednesday by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.),
this week. In the letter, Kirch called the bill an "important first
step toward achieving a more rational, consistent update methodology
that appropriately reimburses physicians for their services."
Medical journals adopt standards
on conflict of interest reporting
Several medical journal editors announced
last week that all journals published by members of the International
Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) will now use a unified
method for reporting conflicts of interest. As a signatory to the
ICMJE guidelines, Academic Medicine will use this disclosure form,
and beginning in January will also publish a disclosure statement
at the end of each article. In total, at least 12 publications,
including the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and the
Journal of the American Medical Association, have agreed to use
the standardized form, which requires researchers to not only disclose
financial conflicts of interest, but other conflicts that could
potentially interfere with research, including religious or political
affiliations.
AspiringDocs.org launches second video contest
The AspiringDocs.org
Video Contest launched Oct. 15 with a focus on the student role
in increasing diversity in the medical field. The online contest
is a feature of the AAMC's AspiringDocs.org campaign, a Web site
and outreach effort designed to increase diversity in medicine and
provide college students with the information and tools to pursue
careers as doctors. Students are asked to record a short video in
response to the contest question-"What motivates you to increase
diversity in medicine?" Ten winners will be selected. Each will
receive $500 toward medical school application costs and a suite
of AAMC publications.
Finance Committee passes reform bill
The Senate Finance Committee Oct. 13 approved its health care reform
legislation,
the America's Healthy Future Act. Shortly after the vote, key lawmakers
and senior White House officials began negotiating a merger of the
health care reform bills passed by the Finance Committee and the
House Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. On Oct.
8, the AAMC sent a letter urging Senate leadership to drop or significantly
modify an amendment that would change current law with respect to
payment for certain molecular laboratory tests. Specifically, the
provision would allow a select group of independent laboratories
to bill Medicare directly within the 14 day of a patient's discharge.
Hospital-based laboratories, medical schools, and teaching hospitals
would not qualify for the provision, even if they were performing
the very same tests or a less costly but equally effective alternative.
CBO: tort reform would reduce federal deficits
According to a report
released by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), tort
reform proposals could reduce federal budget deficits by roughly
$54 billion over 10 years. The report indicated the savings would
be possible by placing a $250,000 cap on awards for noneconomic
damages and a $500,000 cap on awards for punitive damages. In addition,
the proposals would reduce total national premiums for medical liability
insurance by about 10 percent.
Study: tired doctors do not significantly
increase surgical complications
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has released a report
titled "Medicare Physician Services: Utilization Trends Indicate
Sustained Beneficiary Access with High and Growing Levels of Service
in Some Areas of the Nation." One of the report's key conclusions
was that "some geographic areas of the country experienced much
higher levels of utilization of physician services and much greater
increases in utilization compared to the rest of the nation." Senate
Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who commissioned the
report, said in a written statement the report's findings "revealed
disproportionate Medicare spending and potentially dangerous overuse
of services in certain regions of the United States."
First NIAMS director dies
Lawrence E. Shulman, M.D., Ph.D., the first director of the National
Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)
at the National Institutes of Health, passed away this weekend at
age 90. Shulman served as NIAMS director from 1986 until his retirement
in 1994, when he was named director emeritus of the institute.
Former Washington University in St. Louis
School of Medicine dean dies
M. Kenton King, M.D., dean of the Washington University in St.
Louis School of Medicine for nearly 25 years, died Oct. 15 at age
84. King was appointed the medical school's first full-time dean
in 1965.
On the move
Stephanie Wragg, Ph.D. has been named director of the Group on
Women in Medicine and Science and will join the AAMC on Nov. 1.
Wragg previously served as the director of faculty development at
the regional campus of the University of Miami Miller School of
Medicine at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
