Staff News Writer

On the heels of massive network terminations made across the country for the 2014 health plan year that caused enormous confusion for patients and their physicians, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and many states are considering ways to ensure health plan networks provide sufficient access to care.

Adults with disabilities are three times more likely to have chronic diseases such as diabetes or heart disease than adults without disabilities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Follow five steps to ensure your patients with disabilities stay healthy and lessen their chances to develop chronic diseases.

A full slate of pressing medical education issues will be discussed by the AMA Council on Medical Education at the AMA Annual Meeting in June, including maintenance of certification (MOC) and graduate medical education (GME) financing.

The latest victims of tax refund fraud include hundreds of physicians and other health care professionals, who received a rude revelation when filing their taxes this year.

Physicians are taking on the issue of mental health parity in a case against UnitedHealthcare, claiming the payer has “systematically implemented unlawful and deceptive practices.”

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology issued a proposed rule containing voluntary certification criteria for EHR systems in 2015 to be used by physicians participating in the meaningful use program. The rule was to give vendors flexibility in upgrading their systems and offer a look at the 2017 edition. The AMA submitted comments on the proposed rule.

As health care moves into the era of the supercomputer and electronic health records medical education is incorporating health information technology, virtual patients and more innovative learning methods into their curricula. Some of these ideas were shared at a consortium meeting for schools that received grants through the AMA’s Accelerating Change in Medical Education initiative.

Innovative ideas that focus on specific diseases and patient populations could soon be tested with physician specialists through new care delivery and payment models the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) plans to support.