The Recovery Audit Contractor (RAC) demonstration program proved to be a great success for the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services. Medicare already has recouped nearly $1 billion from providers in the five states where the program was launched in 2005. And with tough times hitting everyone -including CMS - the government health care ...

Chinese health officials are celebrating the New Year with an anti-smoking campaign to end the tradition of giving cigarettes as gifts. The campaign from the China Center for Disease Control and Prevention stresses that giving such gifts is like ''sending wishes of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases to your friends.''The country grows ...

When clinicians don't follow the asthma guidelines, patients usually end up paying the price. But in Filippo Volandri's case, he's literally paying the price - $166,000 in fact - for not following the guidelines as an asthma patient, Sky Sports reported. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) handed the Italian tennis star a three-month ...

Economic troubles have many pinching their pennies and cutting down their gift lists this holiday season. But this year, there's at least one valuable gift respiratory specialists can give their profession without spending a dime: their voice. While many health care professionals feel helpless with competitive bidding and oxygen caps looming ...

 A panel of 30 medical and scientific Food and Drug Administration advisors plans to vote today on whether the safety risks posed by long acting beta agonists outweigh the benefits to respiratory patients. But professional and patient organizations across the country have already weighed in today in support of keeping the medications on the ...

In keeping with the College's theme for this year's meeting, ''Embracing the Challenges of Change,'' ACAAI President-Elect Rich Gower, MD, welcomed attendees at this morning's opening ceremony and encouraged them to broaden their horizons in allergy, asthma, and immunology. As you all know, the practice of medicine is undergoing a lot of change, ...

That's how graduate student and writer Paul Devlin started off his open letter to Michelle Obama at the end of April. He went as far as saying that the future of the free world and perhaps Barack Obama's campaign depends on him getting his nicotine fix: Maybe he could have one this weekend? He really needs to win Indiana. Also, keep in ...

Minnesota just became the third state nationwide to consider a campaign for scent-free schools. Rep. Karen Clark proposed educating students about how their Burberry, Marc Jacobs and Axe contribute to classmates' health problems, including asthma.(Clark, along with lawmakers in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, considered then dropped all-out ...

Kirk Walters of The Toledo BladeTechnology in the 21st century has eased us of most of the physical burdens our grandparents and great-grandparents had to endure, but certainly some of our modern-day conveniences have come at a price. Our society has entered into somewhat of an ethical crisis, plagued by issues like energy ...

In the wake of the glam and glitter of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, here's one more film to put on your list of ''must sees.'' Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., but studies have shown physicians don't feel equipped to counsel patients to stop smoking. Surveys of U.S. medical schools revealed most medical ...