The Politics of Health Care

Mammography and the Right to Choose

2009-11-20T19:55:00Z

Guest commentary from Valerie M. Chapman, RN, MSN I am a wife, a mother of two awesome kids, a daughter, a sister and a nurse. I am also a survivor. At the age of 43 a routine screening mammogram picked up an abnormality in my left breast that turned out to be invasive lobular carcinoma. I had no family history or major risk factors, but there it was: breast cancer. I had breast-sparing surgery to remove the tumor and then six weeks of radiation therapy. I started oral treatment with tamoxifen to...(read more)

Achieving Meaningful Use

2009-11-17T16:33:00Z

Guest commentary from Celwyn C. Evans, a senior partner at Greencastle Associates Consulting in Malvern, Pa. With the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, the focus of debate has fallen squarely on the challenge of defining "meaningful use" of an electronic health record (EHR). Maybe it's time to turn our attention to actually achieving meaningful use. It's clear that the concept is intended...(read more)

What PAWA Would Mean to Employers

2009-11-13T16:38:00Z

The Protecting America's Workers Act of 2009, if passed by Congress, would dramatically alter the regulatory regime. Guest commentary from Eric J. Conn and Robert C. Gombar, partners in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery, LLP, based in Washington, D.C. Just weeks before his death, the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), with the help of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), introduced legislation to amend the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act), which has not been significantly...(read more)

Building a Foundation for Health Care Transformation

2009-11-12T15:56:00Z

Evidence-based medicine will improve the quality of care and impact of each health care dollar spent. Guest commentary from Marc Perlman, g lobal vice president, Healthcare and Life Sciences Industry, Oracle The U.S. health care industry is challenged like never before to improve outcomes while reducing costs. Our current rate of spending is unsustainable, and more important, the results we achieve do not always reflect the resources expended on care delivery. As our national leaders debate the future...(read more)

Harvard Research Reveals Startling Stats on Veterans

2009-11-10T19:57:00Z

Guest commentary from Physicians for a National Health Program , an organization of 17,000 doctors who support single-payer national health insurance. A research team at Harvard Medical School estimates that 2,266 U.S. military veterans under the age of 65 died last year because they lacked health insurance and thus had reduced access to care. That figure is more than 14 times the number of deaths (155) suffered by U.S. troops in Afghanistan in 2008, and more than twice as many as have died (911...(read more)

MGMA Pleased with House Vote on Health Reform

2009-11-09T17:56:00Z

Guest commentary from William F. Jessee, MD, FACMPE, president and CEO of the Medical Group Management Association The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) is pleased that the House has voted favorably on H.R. 3962 (The Affordable Health Care for America Act) and we look forward to its rapid action on the companion bill, H.R. 3961, which will eliminate the 21.2 percent reduction in Medicare physician payments otherwise scheduled to occur on Jan. 1, 2010. We are pleased that H.R. 3962 addresses...(read more)

Reform is Historic; Price Tag Could be, Too

2009-10-20T21:32:00Z

Guest commentary from David St. Clair, founder and CEO of MEDecision, a provider of collaborative health care management solutions. I felt the health care reform news out of Washington last week was decidedly mixed. For those of us who have advocated reform for many, many years, the mere fact that legislation made it past the Senate Finance Committee and one step closer to becoming reality is quite historic. A lot of folks never thought we'd even get this close, so it is indeed something that gives...(read more)

Whose Numbers Would You Trust?

2009-10-14T21:25:00Z

As the U.S. Senate attempts to merge bills from its Finance and Health committees, considerable controversy surrounds the data being used to support -- or detract from -- proposed measures. For example, in a report prepared for America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) examined the impact of the Senate Finance Committee's health reform bill. AHIP cited the PwC analysis in voicing concerns about the bill's cost. According to the PwC report, the cost of the average family...(read more)

Get Ready for a More Aggressive OSHA

2009-09-30T20:10:00Z

Guest commentary by James A. Lastowka, a partner in the law firm of McDermott Will & Emery LLP based in Washington, D.C., and a member of the firm's OSHA, MSHA & Catastrophe Response Group. The Obama administration's "new OSHA" has a simple message for U.S. industry. This message has been delivered loudly and clearly by both Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Acting Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Jordan Barab. Their message: "There is a new sheriff in town." And we...(read more)

'More is Better' Only Applies to Technology

2009-09-21T15:28:00Z

Guest commentary by Andrew Schuyler, chief medical officer at MEDecision. In a recent article on the San Francisco Chronicle 's Web site, Dr. Deepak Chopra speculates that a lot of what's wrong with health care today can be attributed to the false notion that more is better. As a society, Dr. Chopra suggests, we've come to believe that by undergoing more tests, receiving additional procedures, taking more drugs and seeing more doctors more often, we'll be healthier. He offers myriad statistics to...(read more)

Health Care Reform

2009-09-08T16:10:00Z

Guest commentary by Ward Keever, executive director of executive services for CTG HealthCare Solutions. Mr. Keever serves on ADVANCE's editorial advisory board. The hot topic for this summer has been health care reform. It has consumed our Congress as well as most of our national publications and TV/radio talk shows. In spite of all this attention, we still do not have a solution. In my view, we have focused too much on one possible approach -- the national health care option -- and have not focused...(read more)

Patient Safety: Getting the Name Wrong May be Fatal

2009-08-13T14:48:00Z

Guest commentary by Dr. Bruce Lambert, University of Illinois at Chicago professor, Department of Pharmacy Administration, and president, Pharm I. R., Inc.; and Dr. Leonard A Shaefer, IBM chief scientist, Global Name Recognition After taking Flomax, used to treat the symptoms of an enlarged prostate, instead of Volmax, used to relieve bronchospasm, a 50-year-old woman was hospitalized. After he was given clozapine instead of olanzapine, two drugs used to treat schizophrenia, 19-year-old man showed...(read more)

President Spends a Third of His Time on Health Care

2009-07-29T16:12:00Z

There's no denying the importance of health care reform within President Barack Obama's agenda. In a July 28 interview with Time magazine's Karen Tumulty, the president said that in the last two to three weeks, he's been spending at least a third of his time focused on health care. He explained the detailed level of his policy push: "Certainly we spend a lot of time with our health-care team talking both policy and politics. I'm reaching out to members of Congress, meeting with them or talking to...(read more)

What Women Need

2009-06-23T20:20:00Z

Guest commentary by Sabrina Corlette, director of health policy programs for the National Partnership for Women & Families In the halls of Congress, in the media, in the coffee shops and restaurants of Washington, D.C. -- health care reform is dominating the conversation, and for good reason. We have an enormous opportunity, and a small window of time, to make the transformational changes to our health system that we urgently need. As the health care reform debate unfolds, the National Partnership...(read more)

Health Care Reform: Ready or Not, Here it Comes

2009-05-22T14:48:00Z

Guest commentary by Nancy Nager, RN, BSN, MSN, president of Specialized Billing Services, Inc. Medical billing is about to get a lot more complicated. If your medical practice hasn't kept pace with new billing requirements, or if you're bogged down by receivables, it may be time to take action. As part of its health care reform plan, the Obama administration is calling for a standards- based electronic health information system and the widespread adoption of electronic medical records. The administration...(read more)