Stop-Smoking Coverage Expanded
Physicians will be reimbursed for counseling any Medicare patient about smoking cessation, not just those with tobacco-related illness, under new guidelines approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Previously, a patient needed to at least show signs of illness related to smoking before Medicare would pay. Under the new guidelines, any smoker covered by Medicare can have up to eight smoking-cessation sessions per year from a physician or other Medicare-recognized health practitioner, CMS said. American Medical Association President Cecil B. Wilson applauded the agency's coverage expansion. “More than 400,000 Americans die needlessly every year as a direct result of tobacco use,” Dr. Wilson said in a statement. “This expansion of coverage takes an important step toward helping Medicare patients lead healthier, tobacco-free lives.”
BP Will Pay for Health Studies
Oil company BP is contributing $10 million to the National Institutes of Health to jump-start the company's $500 million research project aimed at determining the health effects from the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The NIH, with local advice from people in the Gulf region, thus takes over distribution of the first funds from the company's 10-year Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. The effort will focus on the potential health consequences of workers' exposure to oil and dispersants, such as respiratory, neurobehavioral, carcinogenic, and immunologic conditions. It also will evaluate “mental health concerns and other oil spill–related stressors such as job loss, family disruption, and financial uncertainties,” according to the NIH. Distribution of the remaining funds for the project will be determined in consultation with Gulf state governors, BP said.
Prescription Drug Use Rises Again
The percentage of Americans who said they took at least one prescription drug in the past month increased from 44% to 48% from 1999 to 2008, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the same time, the number of people who said they had taken two or more drugs in the previous month increased from 25% to 31%, and the number of people who took five or more drugs increased from 6% to 11%, the report found. One out of every five children used one or more prescription drugs, as did 90% of adults aged 60 years and older. Women were more likely to have taken a prescription drug, while those who did not have health insurance, prescription drug coverage, or a regular place to receive health care tended to take fewer prescriptions. The data came from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Patients See Pharma's Influence
Almost 70% of Americans who take prescription drugs believe that drug makers have too much influence over doctors when it comes to those prescriptions, and 50% believe that doctors prescribe drugs even when a person's condition could be managed without medication. The data are the result of a Consumer Reports magazine poll. On the basis of the survey of more than 1,150 adults, the magazine asserted that 51% of Americans don't think that their doctors consider patients' ability to pay for prescribed drugs and 47% think gifts from pharmaceutical companies influence doctors' drug choices.
Drug Information Found Lacking
The printed consumer information that is provided with prescription drugs often fails to provide easy-to-understand information about the product's use and risks, a study by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy found. Secret shoppers visited pharmacies and filled prescriptions for lisinopril and metformin. Only about three-fourths of the consumer information, which pharmacies routinely staple to the outside of prescription bags, met the Food and Drug Administration's minimum criteria for usefulness. The FDA does not regulate the consumer information that accompanies prescriptions. Pharmacies usually purchase it from contractors. The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
First EHR Certifying Bodies Named
A nonprofit organization that is dedicated to health information technology and a software-testing lab have been chosen as the first two bodies to officially test and certify electronic health record (EHR) systems for the federal government. The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology and the Drummond Group can immediately begin certifying EHR systems as HHS compliant, the Department of Health and Human Services announced. Now that HHS has named the certifying organizations, vendors can apply for certification of their EHR systems and physicians soon should be able to purchase certified products, the HHS said.