As a training physician, the experience of navigating graduate medical education in today’s political landscape has introduced unprecedented adversity Whether transitions in health policy or the continually evolving public perceptions of medicine…
Category: Policy
Medicare’s decision to stop telehealth coverage in 2025: an urgent call to action
Medicare is planning to stop coverage for telehealth in 2025—unless Congress acts by the end of 2024. According to Medicare’s website: Absent Congressional action, beginning January 1, 2025, the statutory limitations that were in place for Medica…
How the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan provides a practical solution to medication nonadherence
Starting January 1, 2025, the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan (MPPP) will give providers a powerful way to address one of the biggest barriers to effective care: cost-related medication nonadherence. With 54 million Medicare beneficiaries eligible, …
How fee-for-service shapes your doctor’s decisions
An excerpt from Reshaping Health Systems: What Drives Health Care and How You Can Change It. Copyright © 2024, Wolters Kluwer. Clinical case Jessica is a 67-year-old woman having her very first visit with her new primary care clinician, Dr. Jackson. Je…
How fee-for-service shapes your doctor’s decisions
An excerpt from Reshaping Health Systems: What Drives Health Care and How You Can Change It. Copyright © 2024, Wolters Kluwer. Clinical case Jessica is a 67-year-old woman having her very first visit with her new primary care clinician, Dr. Jackson. Je…
Texas’ Medicaid expansion: a lifesaving solution ignored
Most Texas politicians balk at even discussing Medicaid expansion. They fear the wrath of state leadership and the threat of being primaried by someone further to the right. The expansion of Medicaid to the full extent permitted by the Affordable Care …
America’s democracy is on the brink: Will leaders act before it’s too late?
At age 80, I’m an “old guy.” I’ve been an avid reader and writer on multiple subjects all of my life. Though I write primarily about U.S. health care, I maintain a lively interest in politics generally. Since election day, IR…
Medicaid in non-expansion states: Explaining the indefensible
Over the years, as members of the Health and Public Policy Committee (HPPC) of the Texas chapter of the American College of Physicians (ACP), we have focused on advocacy for what we believe is the most important health policy issue in our state, Medica…
Congress must fix the Medicare penalty that’s keeping millions from aging at home
People enrolled in Medicare got good news recently. Their annual out-of-pocket costs for Part D prescription drug coverage will be capped at $2,000 next year. That should provide welcome relief to millions of older adults who worry about how they will …
If you are pro-psychiatry, should you be anti-RFK?
Much has been written about Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s radical health plans to eliminate fluoride from the drinking water and suppress vaccines, among other lame-brain schemes. But relatively few people are aware of his anti-psychiatry views, possibl…
