Advocacy Articles
Updates about legislative and regulatory issues impacting the field of sleep medicine
November 30 House vote still needed to stave off projected cuts scheduled for December 1
Congress has convened a “lame duck” session this week to resolve outstanding legislative issues. It is critical that both the House of Representatives and the Senate take action this week to forestall the looming cuts to our payments for critical health care we provide to Medicare beneficiaries. In a letter to members of the House of Representatives and Senate, the AASM has urged Congress to pass legislation that prevents the reduction to Medicare payments.
The National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR) Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board will discuss the NIH Sleep Research Plan and reports from ad hoc consultant working groups during a public telephone conference call from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., Friday, Nov. 12, 2010.
The Oregon Respiratory Care Board (RCB) has issued a temporary rule defining the services that may be provided in an accredited sleep facility by someone who does not hold a state license to practice respiratory care.
the AASM is conducting a comprehensive review of the 2011 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule and will provide members with an analysis very soon
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) is evaluating the 2011 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule in its entirety and will provide members with a detailed analysis.
A study in the Oct. 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine compared wages across broad and narrow categories of physician specialties. The cross-sectional study analyzed data from 6,381 physicians providing patient care in the 2004-2005 Community Tracking Study. Results show that wages for surgery, internal medicine, pediatric subspecialties and other specialties were higher than for primary care specialties.
Almost 50 percent of medical practices say that refusing to accept new Medicare patients is one of the business considerations currently under discussion due to reimbursement uncertainty, according to a recent report from the Medical Group Management Association.
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) have issued a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) encouraging Research Project Grant (R01) applications from institutions/organizations that propose studies that either explore mechanisms of outcomes or other clinical measures using the stored biospecimens from the Action to Control Cardiovascular Disease (ACCORD) participants, or that propose studies to collect new observational data in the ACCORD follow-up study.
The Oct. 27 edition of the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled, “Physician Panel Prescribes the Fees Paid by Medicare”, which provides an overview of the Relative Value Scale Update Committee (RUC). The RUC Panel is convened three times a year by the American Medical Association (AMA) to provide recommendations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as to how the physician piece of the Medicare payment is determined.