Week of March 17 - In Case You Missed It...TOMF Medical News Roundup
March 21, 2014
In Case You Missed It...
March 17, 2014
March Match
More osteopathic physicians, nearly 25 percent of the 2,064 2014 graduates, have chosen to go into family practice than any other medical specialty, says the American Academy of Family Physicians. Overall, 53 percent of osteopathic physicians choose primary care (family practice, internal medicine and pediatrics) and will begin training in those specialties this summer.
March Madness
This time of year pulses quicken and many Southern Arizonans feel short of breath and light headed - but only Thursday through Sundays the middle weekends of the month. UA College of Medicine has studied this phenomenon and you can see the findings by clicking here.
March Deadline
As the enrollment March 31 Affordable Care Act deadline grows closer, it is important to use effective messaging for consumers. Enroll America has been testing some different ways to talk about the mandate/penalty, and have found that by framing it as "sign up before March 31st to avoid paying a fine", is the best message -- real quantitative separation from some of the other ways of talking about it (like "penalty" or "fee").
As of March 1st, 57,611 Arizonans have enrolled in the Marketplace and picked a health plan. Of the thirty-six federally facilitated marketplace states (including partner states), Arizona ranks 15th in plan selection.
Arizona is one of only a few FFM states where enrollment is also occurring for expanded Medicaid. As of March 1st, AHCCCS reported that there had been 85,309 Arizonans added to AHCCCS under the Prop 204 restoration category (adults between 0-100 FLP) and 5,806 added to the expansion category (100 -133 FPL). In total, 158,726 Arizonans have been added to coverage since October 1st, or 14 percent of the population of uninsured Arizonans.
• Arizona is trailing the national average in young adult enrollment (ages 18-34). Nationally, 25 percent of Marketplace enrollment is in this age range. In Arizona, 19 percent of Marketplace enrollment falls in this age category. However, we are also exceeding the national average for enrollment of children (19 percent in Arizona versus 6 percent nationally.) SOURCE: March 10 Covered Clips.
In Case You Missed It...
March 18, 2014
SWC Speaker Page One Today
Sue Sisley MD, who will speak at the TOMF Southwestern Conference on Medicine April 24, was page-one news in today's Arizona Daily Star. She received permission from the US Public Health Service to study whether marijuana can help those suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. She needs DEA approval that her study can safeguard the marijuana while the study is being performed before she can start research.
Sisley, who is an internist and psychiatrist, has been a keen mover behind the scenes to find and incubate real science that marijuana has medicinal effect. She was the leader behind the bill to allow research on Arizona university campuses, overturning the absolute ban of campus marijuana.
She will speak about medical marijuana Thursday, April 24, 10:45-11:45 a.m., during the Southwestern Conference on Medicine at the JW Marriott Star Pass Resort and Spa.
Farm, Not Pharm...
...Is a phrase you will hear over and over in the coming years. It is a catchy way of restating the old maxim, "You Are What You Eat," and draws on ancient wisdom as well as the latest nutritional science.
Last weekend the Wall Street Journal ran an unusually large section titled, "An Apple a Day Goes Gourmet." In it were the foods that prevent inflammation, reduce heart disease and lower cancer risk. What set this article apart was the focus on physicians and master chefs coming together to create healthy food with world class taste. One chef said it best: "All they ever told me was what not to put in food. They never told me what I should make."
Why is this important?
We are a medicated nation, usually for conditions we can at least moderate through better eating. Those drugs are not only expensive, but are ending up in our water supply. Further, the Arizona Daily Star reported Saturday (Drug Poisoning No 1 Cause of Unintended Deaths) that overdoses of even common over the counter medications have surpassed traffic fatalities as the top killer of Arizonans.
Eat your greens...but watch for great ways to make them.
Alzheimer Under-Count
Yesterday George Vradenburg, chairman of USAgainstAlzheimer's, and Nobel Prize winner Stanley Prusiner MD, had a guest opinion in the Wall Street Journal in which they posed an interesting theory, backed by a study in the journal Neurology: namely, that we under-count Alzheimer's deaths by a factor of nine.
What difference does that make?
Huge. In 2010, Alzheimer's was the listed cause of death in 84,000 cases, making it sixth on the leading causes of death. They posit, and the study in Neurology seems to confirm, that many Alzheimer patients dies from diseases adjunct to their disease. The real number of people dying with Alzheimer's is about 503,000, which takes us into the top killers of Americans every year.
Research dollars are at stake and the numbers indicate that all of us will be impacted by the disease.
In Case You Missed It...
March 19, 2014
Did You Know Andy Nichols?
Andrew W. Nichols MD was an Arizona legislator from Pima County who died of a massive heart attack April 19, 2001 in his Arizona Senate office. More than 600 attended a Capitol rotunda memorial service and an additional 900 attended services in Tucson.
He was a staunch Democrat, but generated bipartisan support on medical issues, border health and rural access to care. He led two successful proposition fights to expand Arizona's Medicaid eligibility from 34 percent to 100 percent of the federal poverty level.
There will be an event March 27 to remember Nichols's life - a happy event, wherein the memories will go into a book by Linda Valdez, the author of the superb biography of the UA College of Medicine's founding dean, Merlin K. DuVal MD.
There is no charge, although donations will be accepted for the Andy Nichols Memorial Fund that is administered by the UA Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public. Funds received go to students who undertake international and rural health internships. The 2013 recipients of the Nichols scholarships will speak during the event.
Also on tap: Former Arizona Governor and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt will receive the Andy Nichols Award and Ron Pust MD will receive the Herb Abrams Award for Public Health.
The event will be held in Alison Hughes's garden at 2223 E. Edison, from 5-7 p.m., Thursday, March 27.
UAMC Hires Transplant Director
Scott D. Lick MD will again call Tucson home April 1 when he arrives from the University of Texas, Galveston, to take over as director of heart and lung transplant surgery at the University of Arizona Medical Center.
Dr. Lick trained here under Dr. Jack Copeland, 1987-1993.
Full details are in a March 16 Arizona Daily Star article by Stephanie Innes.
A Death in the Medical Family
Family practice physician and psychiatrist John Clymer MD, who served Arizona patients since 1953, died this morning after complications from a stroke. He was 88.
After training, he opened a practice on Central Avenue in Phoenix in 1953. In 1965 he entered a psychiatric residency and began a Tucson practice in 1968. He retired in 2009.
Dr. Clymer, who served as president of both the Pima County Medical Society and the Arizona Medical Association, led two "Walk With A Doc" programs in 2012 and 2013.
In Case You Missed It...
March 20, 2014
March 31 is Hard Deadline
Many people are putting off buying medical insurance under the Affordable Care Act because they've "heard" the Obama administration is going to push the date back. While the administration will make allowance for someone who tried to sign up on March 31 and computer glitches slowed the application into early April, the administration sent strong warnings this week that March 31 is absolutely the last day for individuals to sign up or get a fine.
Fines start at $95. Married couples with two kids who earn $50,000 risk a $300 fine. The same family making $100,000 faces an $800 fine.
Health and Human Services estimates that 1,033,000 Arizonans who don't currently have medical insurance are eligible for premium assistance.
HIPPA Violation at St. Mary's
A laptop with basic health information on 1,700 patients cared for by hospitalists at St. Mary's between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2013 was stolen. Under rules established by the Health Insurance Portability and Patient Protection Act, incidents involving over 500 patients must be reported to the media. The media stories appeared last weekend, including a story in the Arizona Daily Star by Carmen Duarte.
Affected patients have already been notified and given a year's worth of credit monitoring.
Fortunately, in the vast majority of cases, thieves want the laptop and not the data.