Cancer Screening Record
Officials at the American Academy of Dermatology are hoping for a record-setting year in 2006. AAD officials are recruiting members to participate in an attempt to set a Guinness World Record for the most skin cancer screenings conducted in a single day. The potentially record-setting screening day is set for Saturday, May 6, 2006. The AAD will be organizing large-scale screenings on that day in Washington, Chicago, and New York, but officials are also encouraging members in other areas to conduct their own free screenings. The academy's Melanoma/Skin Cancer Screening Program, which began in 1985, has helped to screen more than 1.5 million people. For more information on the May 6 screening day, e-mail the AAD at
Psoriasis Advocates
The patient advocacy group Psoriasis Cure Now has singled out three members of Congress for their work to increase funding for federal research on psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis. The group honored Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), and Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) with the group's 2005 Health Care Advocates of the Year award. "People with psoriasis have no Hollywood stars or other glitzy backers to call on for support or to bring attention to this incurable disease," Michael Paranzino, president of Psoriasis Cure Now, said in a statement. "Yet these leaders took up our cause without fanfare and recognized how research on psoriasis will help not just the millions of Americans with the disease, but may also help us better understand other challenging diseases."
Research Grant Program
The Women's Dermatologic Society is developing a new grant program this year to allow residents and young physicians to conduct clinical and basic research on women's health issues. The new grant, which is being sponsored by Ortho-Neutrogena, will provide grants in the amount of $3,000 to $8,000 each. Applicants must have an MD or DO degree and be a resident in an accredited training program or a board-certified or board-eligible dermatologist in the first 3 years after completing postgraduate training. Applications will be reviewed by a newly formed section of the Women's Dermatologic Society called the Academic Dermatologist Interest Group, which will monitor the grants program. A deadline for grant applications has not yet been set. Information on the program is available on the group's Web site at
www.womensderm.org/grant/research.html
Food Allergen Labeling
All food labels now must clearly state if a product contains any ingredients with protein derived from the eight major allergenic foods. Under the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004 (FALCPA), manufacturers are required to identify in plain English the presence of ingredients that contain protein derived from milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, or soybeans in the list of ingredients or to say "contains" followed by the source of the food allergen after or adjacent to the list of ingredients. It is estimated that 2% of adults and 5% of infants and young children in the United States have food allergies. Approximately 30,000 consumers require emergency department treatment and 150 Americans die each year because of allergic reactions to food. The statute, however, does not require manufacturers or retailers to relabel or remove products that don't have the labeling because they were labeled before the effective date.
Rural Access to Part B Drugs
Access problems may prevent rural providers from participating in the new Competitive Acquisition Program (CAP) for Part B drugs and biologicals, Joan Sokolovsky, a senior analyst with the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), said at a commission meeting last December. Physicians who elect to participate in the program will obtain drugs from a preselected list of vendors, who in turn will take on the responsibility of billing Medicare for the drugs and collecting coinsurance or deductibles from patients. Under CAP rules, drugs must be delivered to the facility where they will be administered. Chemotherapy in rural areas, however, is delivered through satellite facilities, where "sometimes drugs cannot be mixed," Ms. Sokolovsky said. In a recommendation, MedPAC said that the Health and Human Services department should allow an exception to these delivery rules for rural satellite offices of providers.
Pay for Performance Not Local Yet
Despite the national buzz over pay for performance and the interest in Congress, such initiatives have yet to catch on in many local communities, the Center for Studying Health System Change reported in a study. "While there's been plenty of buzz about pay for performance as a way to improve health care quality, the reality is that these initiatives are off to a slow start in many communities," said Paul B. Ginsburg, Ph.D., who is president of HSC. The study was based on site visits to 12 nationally representative communities. Of these communities, only two, Orange County, Calif., and Boston, had significant physician pay-for-performance programs in place. In the other communities, where to date almost no physicians had received quality-related payments, physician attitudes ranged from skeptical to hostile, according to study results.