Letter from the Editor, #654

There are some looming issues in reimbursement for healthcare coming in the next year. If things don’t change prescribers will be faced with a 27% decrease in reimbursement rates for Medicare and Medicaid patients, and many of the practitioners I talk to tell me that they will no longer take these patients. The government says that if we all do a good job and improve the care we are giving to our patients the shared savings that are spread to prescribers will more than offset the decrease in payment rates.

 

They go on to say that the best way to cash in on these shared savings is to become part of an ACO (Accountable Care Organization). This week’s Item #5 takes a look at what barriers your practice might encounter during the early stages of developing an ACO. If you have an interest in learning more about ACO’s then be sure and check out the Homerun Slides in next Tueday’s Clinical Mastery Series.

 

A few months ago we brought you a Homerun Slides series on Infections in Patients with Diabetes. Many of you found this information very valuable so our current PharmD intern, Kristin Robinson, has summarize this information in a feature article, Diabetes Mellitus and Infectious Diseases: Controlling Chronic Hyperglycemia, and we’ve also turned her charts into a pdf you can post for easy reference.

 

Topics: One of the country’s largest health organizations conducts a groundbreaking study on how media can improve diabetes control. Also, how hormones help and hinder diabetes. Sundays on CNBC at 7 PM ET, 6 PM CT, and 4 PM PT. Catch up on dLife.com.