If you are a Medicare patient you need to know that a Medicare disaster is on the verge of occurring. The Senate adjourned before approving a bill that would prevent a 21.2% physician pay cut from becoming effective on Monday March 1, 2010.

To their credit (for once) Democrats have tried for months to pass legislation that would prevent this from happening but once again this past week they were thwarted by Republican Senator Jim Bunning from Kentucky. He stated that he just could not support this bill with all of it’s other expensive attachments because the Democrats had not figured out a way to pay for it and thus it would increase the deficit.

The bill was going to delay the pay cut for 30 days until something more permanent could be studied and possibly passed. Most physician groups have supported passage of a bill that permanently fixes this recurring pay cut problem.

If physicians are to be believed, it may be hard to get a doctor’s appointment as early as next week. I don’t think I am going out on a limb by saying that if the pay cut occurs, a primary care physician will LOSE money every time a Medicare patient walks in their office. NOT make less money, LOSE money! The average Joe may not believe it but it’s true!

I have no doubt that something will be done. Medicare payors have already informed physicians that if the pay cut occurs they will hold all Medicare claims for 10 business days starting Monday giving the Senate time to fix the problem and make it retroactive to March 1st.

If the physician pay fix doesn’t become a done deal, woe to those (including me) who need a doctor and their payor is Medicare!  bjmdjd

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Medicare · Medicare physician pay cut · Sen. Jim Bunning · Senate Democrats

Well, I was correct but I’m sorry I was! The Healthcare Summit was a complete waste of time and C-Span broadcast resources. The only thing that I got from it was that the Democrats told everyone that they were going to pass the current bill no matter who opposes it!

As for me I’m sick on my stomach! You can read the details somewhere else (if you have the time to waste and the stomach for it)!  bjmdjd

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Healthcare Reform · healthcare summit

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has voted to recommend that all adults receive the annual influenza vaccine beginning next flu season (2010 – 2011). Prior to this recommendation the focus was on people between the ages of 6 months and 18 years old and over 50 years old, anyone at risk of complications from the flu, and those in close contact with high risk individuals.

Now the new recommendation encourages everyone over the age of 6 months to be vaccinated unless they have a contraindication. Since vaccine makers have plenty of lead time for planning an increased manufacturing schedule it is hoped that the increase need for vaccine will not cause a shortage.  bjmdjd

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention · flu shot · flu vaccine · health · universal flu vaccine recommendation · wellness

I am excited and proud to announce to my readers that this website has been certified by the Health On the Net Foundation (HONcode). This organization elaborates a Code of Conduct to help standardize the reliability of medical and health information available on the World Wide Web. For a full explanation of the process go to: http://www.hon.ch/HONcode/Webmasters/Visitor/visitor.html

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Health On the Net Foundation · HONcode · reliability of health and medical information on the web

On Saturday the New York Times published an article concerning the possible cardiovascular risk to patients taking Avandia for diabetes. This has been in the news for sometime now but until recently had died down. The concern is whether taking the drug raises the user’s risk of having a heart attack or developing heart failure. 

Today the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a report saying that they were reviewing clinical study results and observational studies to determine if Avandia posed a big enough risk to be removed from the market. They stated that no conclusions or recommendations had been reached at this time but they planned to release their findings at a public meeting in July.

Meanwhile, the FDA suggests that all patients continue to take their Avandia unless they are told to stop by their doctor.

A bipartisan Senate investigation of the situation reported that GlaxoSmithKline, makers of Avandia, are responsible for the drug’s current problems because they failed to alert patients for years concerning the drug’s dangers. So the Avandia debacle continues as does the many woes of the Food and Drug Administration. I don’t mind admitting that BEFORE all of this hit the news many months ago, I was taking Avandia.  bjmdjd

Material modifications since posting: 7/14/2010 and 7/16/2010

Avandia · danger of Avandia · diabetes · Food and Drug Administration · GlaxoSmithKline

The big televised While House health summit with the president and congressional republicans and democrats will be held this coming Thursday. Due to the fact that I fully expect this event to be a disaster and not accomplish anything, I just don’t have the stomach to write about it. Sorry. Maybe I’ll be wrong and later this week I can write about what a success it was.  bjmdjd

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Healthcare Reform · White House health summit

The Food and Drug Administration announced today that the makers of asthma medications containing long acting beta agonists (LABAs) must add to the labels that patients should not take drugs containing the LABAs on a long term basis unless their symptoms cannot be controlled on another medication such as an inhaled steroid.

The labels must also contain the information that LABAs should never be used alone in the treatment of asthma. Most patients, both adults and children, receive these LABAs in combination with a steroid such as in the meds Advair and Symbicort.

Patients who gain control of their asthma symptoms on these combination preparations should be changed to an inhaled steroid alone or some other medication without LABAs added.  bjmdjd

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Advair · asthma · Food and Drug Administration · health · long acting beta agonists · Symbicort · wellness

One way to waste a lot of your money is through colon detoxification though many people swear that it works! Since I can’t say it better than Dr. Toni Brayer who publishes the “Interesting Doctor’s Blog” that is listed in my side bar I’ve decided to let her do it. Here is the link:  http://healthwise-everythinghealth.blogspot.com/2010/02/colon-detoxification.html    bjmdjd

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colon cleansing · colon detoxification

After not having posted anything for a few days I came across some information last night that I couldn’t resist. I noticed an ad in one of the many medical magazines/journals that I read on a regular basis for a new medication that I didn’t remember ever seeing mentioned before. It was for a drug called Colcrys.

The interesting thing about this “new” medication is that it is really just plain old colchicine. That’s a med taken for many years for people who suffer from the painful condition known as gout. For years it has cost about 10 cents a tablet at an average monthly cost of about $6.00 per month. Colcrys is about $5.00 a tablet with an average monthly cost of about $300.00. How is this formulation different from the cheaper generic form? It’s not. It’s the same thing!

Why would any patient in their right mind choose the more expensive form? Well, they may not have a choice. You see colchicine falls into a class of drugs called “unapproved” rather than “generic” because it is so old that it predates the law that requires drugs to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA has been encouraging drug companies to get these drugs approved by doing studies and in turn the governing organization will offer some perks such as removing some unapproved drugs from the market. This would give these drug companies sort of a monopoly on these old drugs if you will.

This is what has happened with colchicine. Now that they have done the studies to have their form of the drug “approved” the drug manufacturer that makes the “new” expensive form of colchicine is hoping that all other forms of the med (i.e. the inexpensive forms) will be removed from the market and that theirs will be the only one available. It is not mandatory that the FDA remove all of these “unapproved” forms of the drug from the market but they can if they decide to.

The manufacturer of Colcrys is not waiting for the FDA to act so they have filed suit against the other 4 manufacturers of the older forms of colchicine. Assuming their eventual fate 3 of those 4 companies have already stopped making colchicine. In order to keep the price of colchicine from sky rocketing both physicians and patients need to contact the FDA and let their opinions be known.

You can do so in writing by contacting the FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg at margaret.hamburg@fda.hhs.gov or the director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Dr. Janet Woodcock at janet.woodcock@fda.hhs.gov. Good Luck!  bjmdjd

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colchicine · colchicine price increase · Colcrys · Food and Drug Administration · generic drug · health · health news · healthcare · unapproved drug

There is only a slight chance that this current news story will affect you but it’s too important not to mention. Cardiac Science Corporation has recalled 12,200 automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) due to their inability to operate correctly under certain conditions.

AEDs are the units you sometimes see mounted on walls in areas where large numbers of people congregate like shopping malls, gymnasiums, etc. Also some cardiac patients are purchasing them for home use in case of their own cardiac arrest. Many companies manufacture them but these are from the Cardiac Science Corp. ONLY. The affected devices were either serviced or manufactured from October 19, 2009 – January 15, 2010.

The recall was announced following a Feb. 9, 2010 safety alert issued by the Food and Drug Administration. Anyone who thinks that they own or are responsible for one of these affected AEDs should contact the manufacturer at the link below.  bjmdjd

http://www.cardiacscience.com/services-support/service-announcements-and-upgrades/voluntary-recall.php

Material modifications since posting: See 4/28/10

AED · AED recall · automatic external defibrillator · Cardiac Science Corporation · Food and Drug Administration