Cindy Hughes, CPC F Practice Management (FPM) published several articles and an encounter form last year related to Medicare’s new annual wellness visit (AWV) benefit. Some physicians decided not to offer the AWV due to the complexity of the requirements, but many adapted to Medicare’s version of preventive care and provided these visits in 2011. Unfortunately, the requirements for 2012 have ch...

background: in response to the need for diagnosis and treatment, medical radiation has been increasingly used worldwide. this study investigated the medical utilization of radiation-related diseases among radiological technologists (rts) and factors that influence such diseases. materials and methods: data were collected from the taiwan national health insurance research database. a panel study...

OBJECTIVE This article examines the impact of contracting health care provision to health care cooperatives in Costa Rica. METHODOLOGY The article uses a panel dataset on health care outputs in traditional clinics and cooperatives in Costa Rica from 1990-99. RESULTS Controlling for community socioeconomic characteristics, annual time trends and clinic complexity, the cooperatives conducted ...

BACKGROUND Recent data on digoxin prescribing and adverse events are lacking but could help inform the management of digoxin in contemporary heart failure treatment. METHODS AND RESULTS We determined nationally representative numbers and rates of emergency department (ED) visits for digoxin toxicity in the United States using 2005 to 2010 reports from the National Electronic Injury Surveillan...

conclusions we have demonstrated that ibgms, while not reaching statistical significance, may be associated with slightly reduced a1c and cost due to visiting physicians. results there is a trend of lowered total cost in the intervention group compared to the control group. the control group spent $210.89 per year on visits to physicians; the intervention group spent $131.26 (p = 0.128). patien...

T expansion of Medicare preventive services coverage that took effect on Jan. 1 of this year provides a valuable opportunity for you and your patients to focus on preventive screening and wellness, particularly in the context of an annual wellness visit (AWV), the newest Medicare benefit. However, providing and billing for such visits is, of course, complicated. Our January/February issue cover...

BACKGROUND Implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) are a standard means of sudden cardiac death prevention. Compared with ambulatory visits, remote monitoring (RM) of ICD recipients has improved the quality of health care and spared its resources. Few studies have addressed the organization of RM. We optimized and validated our institutional model of RM organization for ICD recipients. ...