House passes bill to increase funding for medical research and speed FDA approvals Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly (344-77) to pass a bill known as the "21st Century Cures Act," which would boost federal funding for medical research and speed up Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approvals for many new drugs and medical devices. The bill, HR 6, will give $8.75 billion to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research and another $550 million to the FDA over the next five years. A scaled-down bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate and there are hopes that it ... July 29, 2015 General Food and Drug Administration, Research and Experimental Medicine, Federal Legislation, Medical Devices, Public Health 0 0 Comment Read More »
Six tobacco bills to be taken up during special session on health Six bills aimed at saving lives and reducing the cost of tobacco-related diseases on California’s health system will be taken up during the Legislature’s second special session to address health care — a meeting ordered by Gov. Jerry Brown. Some of the bills being proposed are the same as those introduced in the Capitol earlier this year, including bills to add e-cigarettes to the existing tobacco products definition and to increase the age of sale for tobacco products to 21. Other bills introduced would allow local jurisdictions to tax tobacco ... July 29, 2015 General State Legislation, State Legislative Advocacy, Tobacco, Public Health 0 0 Comment Read More »
Senate panel pushes HHS to delay stage 3 meaningful use The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is asking the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to delay the stage 3 meaningful use rules, its chairman, Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said during a news conference Thursday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued proposed rules for stage 3 in March 2015. What's concerning providers is that this stage differs from the others in the degree to which a medical provider, to fulfill its requirements, must depend on other providers to document electronically that they have fulfilled ... July 29, 2015 Medi-Cal, Medicare CMS, Meaningful Use, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services 0 0 Comment Read More »
Early bird deadline for NEPO Building Healthy Communities Summit is August 17 Register for the 2015 Building Healthy Communities Summit by August 17 to save $100! Hosted by the California Medical Association Foundation’s Network of Ethnic Physician Organizations (NEPO), this year’s event will take place on September 18-20, 2015, at the Riverside Conference Center. The Summit is an opportunity for physicians, public health professionals and community leaders who work with underserved communities to learn about emerging health care policy issues and share best practices on how to reduce health disparities and increase access to health care services for the populations they ... July 27, 2015 General NEPO, Network of Ethnic Physician Organizations, Continuing Medical Education 0 0 Comment Read More »
Update on the IMQ Hospital Accreditation Survey Program Since the 1970s, the California Medical Association’s Institute for Medical Quality (IMQ) has participated in hospital licensure and accreditation surveys in partnership with The Joint Commission (TJC) and the California Department of Public Health under the Consolidated Accreditation and Licensure Survey Program. Although the program is no longer consolidated, hospitals that are surveyed by TJC can choose to have an IMQ physician surveyor replace one TJC surveyor on the team. Since October 2014, approximately 50 percent of the hospitals scheduled for a survey in California have opted to have an ... July 24, 2015 General Hospital Medical Staff, IMQ, Institute for Medical Quality, Hospital Accreditation 0 0 Comment Read More »
Deadline to verify CHPI quality data accuracy is July 31 In late May, approximately 18,000 physicians in California received a notice and their individual quality measurement scores for a new quality rating program through the California Healthcare Performance Initiative System (CHPI). The program rates physicians using claims data from Medicare fee-for-service, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California and United Healthcare. Physicians will be assigned a star rating of one to four stars for each measure, based on where they fall as a percentile within a “peer group," plus a composite score. The individual quality measurement scores were based on ... July 24, 2015 General Quality of Care, Quality Reporting 0 0 Comment Read More »
CMA Capitol Insight: July 22, 2015 CMA Capitol Insight is a biweekly column by veteran journalist Anthony York, reporting on the inner workings of the state Legislature. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ An international impact Gov. Jerry Brown is at the Vatican this week, where he will join Pope Francis and leaders around the globe for a climate change conference. The gathering weaves together threads throughout the former Jesuit seminarian governor’s life that have all shaped him in profound ways. Before Brown was an elected official, he was a student at a Jesuit seminary at Sacred Heart Novitiate in Los Gatos. He ultimately ... July 24, 2015 General Anthony York, Governor's Office 0 0 Comment Read More »
Sugar-sweetened drinks responsible for 25,000 U.S. deaths each year Research published in the American Heart Association’s journal, Circulation, concluded that sugary beverages cause the deaths of 25,000 Americans each year through their contributions to obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Globally, sugary drinks contribute to 180,000 deaths each year, with the highest death rate in Mexico. The U.S. ranked second. The study’s authors examined beverage consumption through national dietary surveys gathered by 51 countries from 1980 to 2010. After estimating how sugar-sweetened beverages contribute toward obesity, and how obesity contributes toward various diseases, the researchers were able to conclude ... July 24, 2015 General Diabetes, NEPO, Network of Ethnic Physician Organizations, Public Health, CMA Foundation 0 0 Comment Read More »
CMA updates ICD-10 transition guide With less than three months until the transition to ICD-10, will your practice be ready on October 1, 2015? To help physicians prepare for the transition, the California Medical Association (CMA) has updated its “ICD-10 Transition Guide,” which includes an ICD-10 transition preparation checklist. New information includes: new table indicating code categories that are expanded as well as those that are reduced under ICD-10; information on how payors will handle prior authorizations around the transition date; listing and links to CMA’s live ICD-10 training courses; information on the Centers for ... July 24, 2015 Managed Care ICD-10 0 0 Comment Read More »
Dementia communication conference coming to northern and southern California in July The California Partnership to Improve Dementia care is presenting a one-day conference, “I Already Told You...Don't You Remember,” a guide to excellence in dementia communications and behavior prevention without antipsychotic medication, in both northern and southern California in July. The conference will be offered in Sacramento on July 29 and in Lake San Marcos on July 30. The program will demonstrate dementia communication skills known to prevent or reduce the intensity of challenging behaviors, offer tips for coaching these skills in your own organization and share experiences from communities that ... July 20, 2015 General Quality of Care, Seniors and Persons with Disabilities, Aging 0 0 Comment Read More »
