Index 2001: AMNews editorials

January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December - 2000 index - 2002 index

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Managed care: A new way to report hassles
The AMA has created a physicians-only online form to report problems with health plans. - Dec. 24/31

Health plan competition: Numbers confirm tilted market
A landmark report from the AMA provides the numbers that show how individual health plans dominate many local markets. - Dec. 17

Minority health care: No easy answer to disparities
A panel exploring disparities in care received by minorities may provide new direction to solving this serious problem. - Dec. 10

Medicare pay cut: Contact your lawmakers now
Physicians should let their legislators know now that they need relief from Medicare's outlandish payment update. - Dec. 3

HHS funds a sound investment to improve patient safety
The patient safety movement receives a much needed injection of cash from the federal government. - Dec. 3

Safer cigarettes? That's just blowing smoke
Suggestions of a "safer" cigarette create a new challenge for physicians treating their smoking patients. - Nov. 26

Court dumps liability on doctors
Unless overturned, expect a Louisiana appeals court decision to have doctors second-guessing their patient transfer decisions based on law -- not medicine. - Nov. 19

Relief from fear on pain medications
A new DEA-signed consensus statement is designed to reassure physicians that it's OK to prescribe needed painkillers. - Nov. 19

Anthrax scare: Time for informed leadership
The AMA was prepared long before Sept. 11 to show leadership in the event of a bioterrorism attack. - Nov. 12

Ensuring coverage: Approach needs a second look
Post-attack unemployment is virtually certain to equal more uninsured Americans. Will lawmakers now be willing to hear about how to fix the system for good times and bad? - Nov. 5

Don't overlook violence in the home
Physicians are at the right place to help victims of domestic violence -- in the privacy of the exam room. - Nov. 5

Industry gifts to physicians: Less is more
Organized medicine issues a timely reminder on the ethical problems raised by physicians who accept gifts from drug and other companies. - Oct. 22/29

Keeping medicines effective: Resisting resistance
An international campaign by the World Health Organization aims to combat antimicrobial resistance, which has reached a critical level that may undermine the medical advances of the past 50 years. - Oct. 15

Terrorism in America: Time for medicine to prepare
The Sept. 11 terrorist attack suggests that even more devastating weapons might be used against Americans and that doctors might be the ones on the front lines. - Oct. 8

Alcohol on campus: Parents join call for controls
A new AMA survey shows that parents are very concerned about alcohol abuse at the nation's colleges. - Oct. 1

National outreach effort: A simple way you can screen for depression
A new initiative will enable doctors to use a free screening test to get depressed patients into treatment. - Oct. 1

A change in approach: Overcome barriers to mental health care
An AMA report spells out the obstacles and solutions to get Americans the mental health care many of them need. - Sept. 24

Get on target: Feds should speed action on HIPAA
Slow action in writing the rules required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act makes getting into compliance even harder. - Sept. 17

Blood and vaccines: Lifesavers in short supply
Transfusable blood and flu and tetanus vaccines are both essential but reserves are low. - Sept. 10

Residency work hours: Time for improvements
The AMA vows to examine and improve resident work-hour conditions for the betterment of medical training and patient care. - Sept. 3

Patients' bill of rights: House version falls short
The House-passed version of patient protection legislation is too much like the earlier law that it was meant to fix. - Aug. 27

The debate on stem-cell research: How to decide
President Bush should reject the argument that adult stem cells can take the place of embryonic ones in critical medical research. - Aug. 20

Update for patient advocacy: Principles of Medical Ethics
The AMA revises its ethics principles, bringing them up to date while holding on to essential traditional worth. - Aug. 13

Medicare drug card: Looking beyond a discount
A Medicare discount card provides some immediate relief for a prescription payment problem that requires solutions designed for the long run. - Aug. 6

Disposing of hypodermics: Stuck with a needle problem
What happens when a hypodermic needle gets tossed into a household wastebasket? More often than people think, it ends up sticking the sanitation worker who picks up the trash. - July 30

HCFA becomes CMS: A name to live up to
Can HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson do as good a job with reducing Medicare hassles as he did in finding a new name for HCFA? - July 23

Doctor surveys put teeth in prompt-payment laws
Asking physicians to track how fast they are paid by health plans is an effective tool to gain prompt-payment laws and tough enforcement. - July 23

Home caregivers: Ask about hidden risks
A new patient questionnaire helps uncover the burnout, depression and personal neglect suffered by those who provide care for elderly or chronically ill patients at home. - July 9/16

Due process: First things first in peer review
A lawsuit on the summary suspension of a California physician's hospital privileges speaks to broader concerns about peer review. - July 2

Lessons from lies and links: Medicine and the Internet
Sometimes the Internet can have a little too much to say about health care. - June 25

Patient safety: Inward look for a new field
Two reports on patient safety research examine where this new science is at and where it is headed. - June 18

Diabetes management: Teamwork for the public good
The release of common measures for the management of adult diabetes is a milestone in cooperation by leading medical organizations, with far-reaching implications. - June 11

Speak out now on Medicare
Have something to tell lawmakers about Medicare hassles? Now is the time to do it. - June 4

Controlling tobacco: Don't drop federal suit
The U.S. Justice Dept. should stick with its racketeering lawsuit against Big Tobacco. - May 28

Organ donation: The physician factor
Most attention on transplantation is focused on donors. The AMA is taking an important inward look on the role of doctors. - May 21

Score one for accountability on managed care front
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that last year shielded managed care organizations from federal lawsuits is now being used to make them accountable in a setting health plans fear far more -- state courts. - May 14

A misguided law on faith healing and its legacy survive
Federal spending to support faith healing will continue, and with it, a government endorsement of a practice that puts children at risk. - May 7

Medicine's legal offensive against managed care
New litigation aimed at managed care might garner physicians some respect from health plans. - April 23/30

Taking intimidation tactics against doctors who do abortions too far
The case against the anti-abortion activists behind the "Nuremberg Files" site should not end with a recent appeals court ruling. - April 23/30

Public health remains vital
The AMA is a catalyst to bring together the worlds of public health and clinical medicine. - April 14

Medicare Education and Regulatory Fairness Act: Necessary and overdue relief
A proposed federal law would blunt Medicare's worst tactics when investigating alleged physician billing errors. - April 9

A few words about AMNews' mission
There's no time like the present to reaffirm the purpose and direction of American Medical News. - April 2

E-mail use requires awareness, guidelines
The AMA has guidelines with advice on how to handle patient-doctor e-mail. - April 2

IOM quality report: The goals to tackle medical errors are laudable. But will they be reached?
The Institute of Medicine tries again with a new report. - March 26

Physician-assisted suicide: When pain trails other concerns
The concerns stated by those who received suicide assistance in Oregon call into question why such a practice is needed. - March 19

Connecticut takes on managed care
Recent lawsuits filed by Connecticut physicians are a striking reality check on physician frustration with managed care. - March 12

States need right tack on Medicaid refunds
State-by-state attempts to recover Medicaid money from physicians are reminiscent of similarly high-handed tactics from Medicare. - March 12

Hospital medical staff privileges: Troubling precedent from South Dakota
A South Dakota Supreme Court decision may influence who decides which doctors get hospital privileges. - March 5

AMA's agenda for a new Congress
The AMA has a lengthy legislative agenda as lawmakers get to work. - Feb. 26

Bad food: How doctors can zero in on foodborne illnesses
A new primer from the AMA and federal agencies helps physicians recognize, treat and report these sicknesses. - Feb. 19

Supreme Court won't fix all ERISA woes
The best place to fix ERISA is in Congress, not the courts. - Feb. 12

FDA proposes a redesign of drug package inserts with patient safety in mind
The proposed improvement in physician instructions for prescription drugs is a good step for patient safety. - Feb. 12

Preparing for the worst: Physician readiness to respond during disaster
The AMA Council on Scientific Affairs issues a report on how medicine can offer an organized response in times of crisis. - Feb. 5

No more "all-products": Some lessons in Aetna's offer
Aetna's decision to drop its much-disliked "all-products" clause carries a powerful message about the power of physician unity and the current state of managed care. - Jan. 29

Doctors' role: A call to protect our youth from violence
Physicians and other health professionals have a critically important role in reducing youth violence. - Jan. 22

U.S. advocates of assisted suicide will find no help from the Netherlands
Euthanasia is about to become legal -- not just tolerated -- in the Netherlands. But will assisted-suicide activists in this country want to point to it as an enlightened example? - Jan. 15

Partnership for Healthy People 2010
The AMA has joined with the federal Healthy People 2010 initiative to eliminate ethnic and racial disparities in health care. - Jan. 15

GAO reports what physicians know: National Practitioner Data Bank is flawed
Several state-level initiatives to help patients measure a physician's competence show promise at helping both physicians and patients -- a task the national data bank has failed at. - Jan. 1/8

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