Gov.
Advisory Council to Recommend 15% Increase in Physician
Supply
The number of medical school graduates should be
increased by 3,000, or 15 percent, over the next 12 years,
according to a forthcoming recommendation of the Council
on Graduate Medical Education, which advises Congress on
physician workforce issues. At its September meeting, the
Council
also recommended a similar increase for physicians entering
residency programs, Modern Healthcare reported.
The recommendation was based on a study conducted by Edward
Salsberg of the Center for Workforce Studies. “There’s
been a worry for the last 20 years about doctor surpluses,”
Salsberg said. “Now, what is likely to become a major
issue over the next 20 years is a doctor shortage.”
The cardiology workforce is the subject of the ACC’s
35th Bethesda Conference, taking place this week at Heart
House in Bethesda.
Oct.
17 Deadline for Medicare Reform Bill Likely to Slip
Members of the House/Senate conference committee working
on resolving differences over the respective chambers’
Medicare reform packages are acknowledging that they will
not meet the Oct. 17 deadline set to complete their work.
As previously reported, the conferees are still at odds
over major components of the legislation, including multiple
aspects of how the prescription drug benefit should be structured.
Committee members were also planning last week to address
another controversial component of the bill, physician ownership
of so-called specialty or boutique hospitals. The House-passed
bill calls for more study of specialty hospitals and their
role in patient care. The Senate bill, however, includes
a provision that would prevent physicians from referring
patients to specialty hospitals in which the physicians
have an interest.
A
detailed report on the recent Alliance of Specialty Medicine
fly-in, during which several legislators addressed the physician
payment provisions of the Medicare reform package, is now
available on the ACC Web site.
Check
Your Dues Notice: Contribute to the Liability Reform Campaign
ACC members should have received their annual membership
dues notice by now. On this year’s dues notice, there
is a check-off option for members to make a small, voluntary
contribution to help fund a campaign being launched by the
ACC and several other physician specialty societies to educate
the public and key legislators about the need for federal
medical liability reform. Included with the dues notice
is a
letter from ACC President Carl J. Pepine, MD, with more
information on the campaign and the importance of member
contributions to it. As more details on the campaign become
available, they will be posted in the Medical
Liability Reform resource center on the ACC Web site.
NCDR
PCI Measure Included in NQF Hospital Quality Consensus Standards
The National Quality Forum (NQF) has endorsed the use of
the ACC-National Cardiovascular Data Registry (NCDR) risk-adjustment
mortality model for PCI in the recently released NQF
national voluntary consensus standards for hospital
care quality. The consensus standards—the first of
their kind in health care—contain 39 measures for
10 conditions, including heart failure and CAD. One of the
CAD measures is how facilities perform on the ACC-NCDR PCI
measure. Details are available in the October 2003 issue
of Cardiology.
Employers,
Health Plans Increasingly Turning to Disease Management
More employers and health plans are turning to disease management
programs to rein in the costs of treating employees/members
with chronic conditions, according to a new
report from the Center for Studying Health System Change
(HSC). Although employers have shifted some of the increasing
cost of health insurance onto employees, many admit that
it’s a temporary fix, the report found. As a result,
a growing number of employers and health plans “are
exploring disease management and intensive case management
as potential tools to help control costs and improve quality.”
Earlier this year, the ACC joined
with the Disease Management Association of America to
form a consensus workgroup on the treatment of chronic cardiac
conditions.
ACC
Calif. Chapter Joins with CMA, Others to Reduce Uninsured
Rate in Golden State
Just prior to the California recall election, Gov. Gray
Davis, D, signed legislation strongly supported by the ACC
California Chapter that will provide health insurance to
an estimated 1.5 million people by 2007. The new law requires
companies in California with at least 200 employees to provide
health benefits by Jan. 1, 2006, while businesses with 50
to 199 employees have an additional year to offer benefits.
The California Medical Association co-sponsored the bill,
and the ACC California Chapter worked closely with CMA,
including testimony during legislative hearings on the bill,
to encourage lawmakers to pass it.
Heart
Failure Still Most Common Medicare Inpatient Diagnosis;
Diabetes Rates Continue to Climb
Heart failure remains the most common DRG among Medicare
patients admitted to hospitals, according to a new report
from the research firm Solucient. In 2001, more than 672,000
Medicare inpatient diagnoses were for heart failure. Meanwhile,
a new report from the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) shows that, the number of American diagnosed with
a major heart disease risk factor, diabetes, has increased
by 27 percent. According to the HHS
report, 6.5 percent of American adults were diagnosed
with diabetes in 2002, compared with 5.1 percent in 1997.
Overall, the HHS report found, life expectancy in the United
States has reached an all-time high of 77.2 years, up nearly
two years from 1990.
Guidant
Recalls Some Lots of Multi-Link Vision Stent
Guidant Corp. has voluntarily recalled certain manufacturing
lots of the 3.0 mm diameter Multi-Link Vision coronary stent
system. In a news release, Guidant explained that the recall
“is due to a limited amount of product that did not
meet Guidant’s manufacturing specification for stent
retention.” Patients who have received the Multi-Link
stent, the release continues, “are not affected by
this action.”
FDA
Approves Expanded Indication for Eplerenone
The Food and Drug Administration has improved the aldosterone
blocker eplerenone (Inspra) on top of standard medical therapy
for the treatment of CHF in patients who have had a myocardial
infarction. The approval was based on results of the EPHESUS
trial, which was presented at ACC ’03 and published
in the April
3 New England Journal of Medicine. In the trial,
there was a 15 percent reduction in the risk of death among
patients who received eplerenone compared to placebo, in
addition to standard treatment. Patients on eplerenone also
experienced a reduced risk of cardiovascular death and hospitalization.
Advocacy
Weekly is a product of the Advocacy Division of the American
College of Cardiology. Questions or comments regarding this
publication should be directed to the Advocacy Division at
800-435-9203 or to advocacydiv@acc.org. 
