CMS Proposes Changes to Physician Fee Schedule

CMS Proposes Changes to Physician Fee Schedule, from ACEP / EM Today
Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a notice of proposed rule making that concerns changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for 2007, including a revision of physician work Relative Value Units (RVUs) that could mean an increase [...]

Family Presence in ED Resuscitations

CNN.com Video
Hospitals are allowing loved ones into the ER, even when the going gets rough. CNN’s Tom Foreman reports.

Doctors’ Average Pay Fell 7% in 8 Years, Report Says

From the NY Times, via Symtym:
The Dr. Smiths are having trouble keeping up with the Mr. Joneses.
A report planned for release today indicates that the average physician’s net income declined 7 percent from 1995 to 2003, after adjusting for inflation, while incomes of lawyers and other professionals rose by 7 percent during the period. [...]

Physicians barred from using cursive to write prescriptions

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, via Symtym:
Physicians, heal thy handwriting.
On June 7, a new law went into effect that could paralyze the penmanship-impaired. It says that if a prescription isn’t hand-printed, typed or electronically generated, it can’t be filled, Jeff Smith of the state Health Department explained.
Cursive is illegal.
Dr. Richard Goss, medical director of quality improvement [...]

Increased CMS Payments for Emergency Medicine

From ACEP:
American College of Emergency Physicians is proud to announce that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will increase payments for emergency medicine Evaluation and Management codes beginning in January 2007.
According to a proposed notice released by CMS this week, the Relative Value Units for emergency medicine E/M codes will increase from 8.1% to [...]

US hospitals sued in class action over nurse pay

From Reuters:
Nurses backed by the biggest U.S. health-care union on Tuesday filed four class-action lawsuits against some of the biggest U.S. hospitals, including No. 1 chain HCA Inc., claiming they conspired to depress wages for nurses amid a national shortage.
The lawsuits, which also target the biggest U.S. Catholic hospital system, Ascension Health, charge the hospitals [...]

Reasons for Being Admitted to the Hospital through the Emergency Department, 2003

More HCUP Highlights, from Statistical Briefing #2
Circulatory disorders (diseases of the heart and blood vessels) were the most frequent reason for admission to the hospital through the ED, accounting for 26.3 percent of all such admissions; injuries accounted for 11.4 percent.
The top 20 specific conditions accounted for more than half of all hospital admissions [...]

Highlights: Hospital Admissions That Began in the Emergency Department, 2003

From the HCUP project website, Statistical Brief #1
In 2003, 55 percent of 29.3 million hospitalizations (excluding pregnancy and childbirth) began in the ED.
Relative to the populations in each region, individuals in the Northeast were more likely to enter the hospital through the ED, while individuals in the Western states were less likely.
Government payers, Medicare [...]

Institute of Medicine Report on Hospital-Based Emergency Medicine

From the IOM website:
Despite the lifesaving feats performed every day by emergency departments and ambulance services, the nation’s emergency medical system as a whole is overburdened, underfunded, and highly fragmented, says this series of three reports from the Institute of Medicine.
As a result, ambulances are turned away from emergency departments once every minute [...]

Hospital drug ads make some critics feel ill

From The Gazette (Montreal):
It’s safe to assume that most people don’t have sex on the brain in a hospital emergency room.
That might explain why the Viagra ad in the ER area at the Montreal General Hospital once caused a bit of a fuss.
“It wasn’t the ad itself,” said Francoise Chagnon, director of professional services at [...]