Staff News Writer

Treatment, not stigmatization, should be the priority for addressing substance abuse, AMA Board of Trustees Member Mary Anne McCaffree, MD, told state legislators.

Personally identified data about physicians not publicly available soon could be shared with government agencies, law enforcement and Medicare contractors without physicians’ knowledge, under a new “system of records” announced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

While actual payment rates for Medicare services are limited by congressional budget games, the relative values assigned to those services are carefully weighed based on the resources required to provide each service. You might be surprised about who can provide input to shape those values.

This month’s issue of Virtual Mentor, the AMA’s online ethics journal, examines the physician’s role in supporting athletes in their endeavors while discouraging risky behavior.

More medical schools are moving their learning models toward competency-based assessment, requiring greater collaboration and information-sharing in this relatively new area.

The years in residency can be difficult and stressful, both for residents and their significant others. The AMA Alliance magazine, Physician Family, offers 10 top tips for partners of medical residents to survive residency.

In Kentucky Board of Chiropractic Examiners v. Barlow, an appeals court upheld the ability of physicians to provide expert review and testimony in keeping with their full scope of practice and training.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plans to implement random Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) audits to monitor compliance, beginning as soon as later this summer.