On April 16, President Obama signed into law the Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act. This law does away with the sustainable growth rate (SGR) for Medicare payments for patient care, which was designed to hold down spending and consistently reduce physician payments. Under the new law, …

Usually, when a patient has a side effect from a diabetes drug, medical professionals find that the patient never wants to use the medication again. For years, we have seen older patients who say they have a penicillin allergy and won’t allow us to prescribe any related drug even though …

Joe Houmard, PhD, talks about the minimum recommended amount of exercise everyone should get each day, about 30 minutes. He also clarifies that this means, “vigorous exercise,” and defines what that means exactly. And he notes that some people just starting out might want to start with less while others …

In this week’s Homerun Slides, we continue with the 2015 ADA Guidelines with slides on: Physical Activity Recommendations, Smoking Cessation, Immunization Recommendations, and Continuous Glucose Monitoring….

Visual Health Solutions, Inc. Free (basic version) iOS/Android   If you’re looking for a way to motivate your patients to lose weight, this app could be a huge help. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Colorado Anschutz Health and Wellness Center, have developed the first "scientifically accurate, …

Odds increased nearly 50 percent with 60 minutes or more of daily screen time… Children who view television as little as an hour a day are significantly more likely to be overweight or obese and gain more unhealthy weight over time, according to a new study from the School of …

A new UCLA study reports that although metformin has proven to be effective in slowing the onset of diabetes, it is rarely prescribed for this purpose… The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Annals of Internal Medicine, found that only 3.7 percent of U.S. adults with pre-diabetes were prescribed metformin …

Metformin + H2RA and/or PPI = a recipe for neuropathy… An increased BMI is commonly seen in patients with T2D and/or GERD. Metformin is often the first line of therapy for patients with T2D, while H2RA and PPIs are commonly prescribed for patients with GERD. All three agents have been …

Two cases studies of CF males who went undiagnosed until infertility was presented…

Criteria for a diabetic patient’s therapeutic footwear. Since 1993 Medicare has covered therapeutic shoes for diabetic patients. Within 5 years of the benefit’s availability, a report from the Office of the Inspector General of the United States found that 57% of paid claims had missing or inadequate documentation, while an …