Index 2000: AMNews editorials

January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December - 2001 index

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Providing translators for patients who speak limited English: Federal guidelines go too far
Government guidelines requiring translation services for non-English-speaking patients may be so burdensome that they actually threaten access to care. - Dec. 25

Prompt-payment laws: Spotty performance on clean claims
Prompt-pay laws haven't lived up to their potential. Better laws and enforcement are needed, as well as a change in attitude by health plans. - Dec. 18

Physicians for Responsible Negotiation: The right approach for doctors
The AMA-founded group allows physicians to collectively bargain -- with their values intact. - Dec. 11

Suicides or executions: Physicians should not participate
Maine voters rejected physician-assisted suicide. Doctors queried about physician participation in executions should have done the same. - Dec. 4

Influenza vaccine: Delay injects a dose of reality
Production problems for this year's influenza vaccine provide a lesson about the vulnerabilities in a system that many take for granted. - Nov. 27

Principles of Medical Ethics: Standards for a new era
The AMA House of Delegates will consider updates to its ethical guidelines. - Nov. 20

Insuring more Americans
The AMA has updated its plan for health system reform, which offers more choice for more Americans. - Nov. 13

New alcohol limit will be a lifesaver
A new transportation funding law brings with it an improved national standard for a driver blood alcohol limit. - Nov. 13

Good intentions, bad law
The U.S. Supreme Court missed one opportunity in its current session to undo a faulty legal precedent, but it still has the chance to fix another. - Nov. 6

Public health: A worldwide concern
Medical groups must take the lead in addressing the global nature of infectious diseases. - Oct. 23/30

End-of-life care: Welcome focus on eternal issue
Some recent developments have given new life to end-of-life care. - Oct. 16

Paging Aetna's Dr. Rowe
Some advice for the doctor who now heads up the nation's biggest private health plan. - Oct. 9

Be heard at ballot box
Physicians owe it to themselves, their families, their profession -- and most of all to their patients -- to vote and be active in politics. - Oct. 2

Physician reimbursement hassles: Fight or flight
Exasperation or intimidation are what physicians are finding as they contemplate how to get paid. - Sept. 25

Prevention message still key in HIV
Even in an era of declining AIDS deaths and increasing drug regimens, prevention remains the best approach. - Sept. 25

Patient safety: Apologies nice; systemic solutions are even better
New laws that allow physicians to apologize to patients are a good step. Ensuring fewer mistakes is the next move. - Sept. 18

Get uninsured kids on SCHIP
A program that could provide coverage to millions of uninsured children is vastly underused. Physicians can help spread the word about it. - Sept. 18

Doctor apathy stalls dot-coms
Physicians haven't been interested in what dot-coms are selling. Most of e-health care's highfliers have dropped to earth. - Sept. 11

Tune out media violence
A joint statement from leading medical and psychiatric groups underscores the need for greater awareness of the problems caused by entertainment violence. - Sept. 4

AMA offers models for two contracts you will like
The model contracts provide physicians with information on how to approach managed care and employment situations. - Aug. 28

Tobacco: A global crisis
As more doctors reclaim their practices, physicians and other experts have suggestions on how to navigate the switchover. - Aug. 21

Health plan coalition may be making a bid to bump patients' rights
Is the managed care industry sincere in its announced change of ways, or is this just another attempt to stall a patients' rights law? - Aug. 14

Court to health plan: Say how you determine physician reimbursement
A Georgia appeals court ruling is a first step in lifting the veil of secrecy on how insurers set physician pay. - Aug. 7

Web Edition: AMNews anywhere, anytime
Recent improvements in the electronic versions of AMNews provide readers with convenient and comprehensive access to our current content -- and more. - July 31

Overuse of antibiotics is spawning antibacterial overkill
Our decades-long overreliance on antibiotics has created serious new health problems. - July 24

Patients' rights: Supreme reality check
A careful reading of the Herdrich opinion reveals messages that somewhat deflate this managed care coup. - July 10/17

The AMA Foundation: Building for the future
The Foundation has compiled an impressive record that is an eloquent testimony to the generosity and vision of the medical community. - July 3

Wrong call on faith healing
A U.S. appeals court has upheld a law that provides Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for the custodial care of individuals undergoing spiritual treatment at Christian Science sanatoria and other "religious nonmedical health care institutions." - June 26

Useful guide on dementia
The AMA's "Diagnosis, Management and Treatment of Dementia -- A Practical Guide for Primary Care Physicians" provides a timely and valuable resource for physicians. - June 19

Right ruling on deselection
The California high court's ruling in Louis E. Potvin, MD, v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. establishes the right of physicians in that state to demand an explanation and a hearing when a doctor is dropped from a health plan. - June 12

AMA House of Delegates: A new century of challenges
The AMA and its policy-making process are needed more than ever to confront challenges of a new century. - June 5

An improved pain relief bill
The Pain Relief Promotion Act came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee a much improved bill. - May 22/29

Examine why racial care disparities persist
Even with socioeconomic factors removed, the treatment given African-Americans may still compare poorly with that given to whites. - May 22/29

Impaired drivers: Meeting a dual responsibility
Guidelines adopted by the AMA last year call on doctors to report impaired patients to state drivers' license bureaus -- not to law enforcement bodies -- if other interventions fail. - May 15

Patients' rights: Ad's impact was lost credibility
The American Assn. of Health Plans' "Lost & Found" television campaign threatens patients' rights legislation and hurts the credibility of the nation's largest managed care trade group. - May 8

Reader update: An improved AMNews
Improvements starting with this issue mark the first revision of a top-to-bottom redesign of AMNews unveiled in mid-1998. - May 1

Antitrust bill: Still waiting for a fair deal
Rep. Tom Campbell's much-delayed "Quality Health Care Coalition Act" now faces possible hearings before as many as three additional House committees -- to the delight of the managed care industry, which fears and despises the Campbell bill as much as it does patient rights legislation. - April 24

Tobacco control to Congress
The U.S. Supreme Court wouldn't give the Food and Drug Administration oversight of tobacco but lawmakers certainly can. - April 17

Big plan for a healthier people
The Dept. of Health and Human Service's 1,200+ page "Healthy People 2010" should help inch public health forward in the public's attention. - April 17

Physician reimbursement: Unreasonable, not customary?
A class action lawsuit filed recently in New York raises serious issues with the way giant insurer UnitedHealthcare decides how much to pay doctors. - April 10

Keep data bank access limited
Rep. Thomas Bliley's ill-considered campaign to open the National Practitioner Data Bank to public access is a bad idea that would deliver little useful information to consumers. - April 3

Aetna: Richard Huber's simple plan
Aetna U.S. Healthcare's growth was supposed to be a lesson in empire-building, but instead it is a cautionary case study on mixing business and medicine. - March 27

The privacy balancing act
HHS' attempt to strike a balance between patient privacy and administrative simplification seems to have missed both targets. - March 20

Prompt payment: Improving the odds in court
Participation by the AMA/State Medical Society Litigation Center in a Georgia lawsuit involving prompt payment to physicians is an example of how to level a courtroom playing field where health plans often have an advantage. - March 13

Settlement funds: Tobacco money going up in smoke
Los Angeles' proposed misdirection of the settlement funds may be blatant but it's not unique. - March 13

Physician-patient interaction: Communication breakdown
The implications of poor communication touch nearly every aspect of health care, and the AMA has created a number of efforts aimed at improving doctor-patient communication. - March 6

AMA online tutorial: School for (avoiding) scandal
The AMA has launched an online tutorial for its member physicians and their staffs to keep in compliance with fraud and abuse rules. - Feb. 28

Campaign 2000: A much-needed house call
The AMA's National House Call puts its efforts at patient advocacy right where the nation's attention is most focused. - Feb. 21

Protect patient privacy
Why the AMA and the Utah Medical Assn. have filed a friend-of-the-court brief over the use of medical records in a grand jury investigation. - Feb. 14

Preparedness: Goodbye Y2K bug; hello terror bug?
Prevention went a long way to crushing the Y2K bug, but health care facilties are not ready for the next bug to worry about -- bioterrorism. - Feb. 7

Clinical trials: Promising decision from New Jersey
Some New Jersey insurers announce they'd pay for the routine care of patients in government-sponsored phase I-III cancer treatment trials. - Jan. 31

Sidewalk protest: Right rules for persuasion
The U.S. Supreme Court this year will review a Colorado law that seeks to balance the right to privacy and the right to protest when the setting is entrance to a health care facility. - Jan. 24

Clear message on patient safety
As the patient safety movement gathers momentum, the overriding goal must be to improve the care of patients and to reduce medical injury to the lowest possible level. - Jan. 17

Pain law: A better end
The Pain Relief Promotion Act is an antidote to physician-assisted suicide. - Jan. 3/10

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45 states allow physicians to refuse to provide abortions. Read more