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 Current Memphis Medical News

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Healthcare Reform Boosts Primary Care
Reimbursement Incentives Offered to Ease the Strain
Well, it’s done, and depending on your perspective, the historic Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that sets about reforming America’s health system could be a boon or it could be a bust. For most stakeholders, reality is somewhere in the middle.
SHARON H. FITZGERALD

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HEALTHCARE LEADER: Mary Hammons, MSN
Chief Executive Officer, Delta Medical Center
It’s all about excellence—and compassion. Although she was a business student at the University of Memphis, Mary Hammons was so impressed and inspired by the level of compassionate care her grandmother received from the ICU nurses at Baptist Central that she chose to enter nursing school, instead. Her passion for ensuring that other patients receive the same level of dedicated attention as her beloved Nana, has never left her.
JUDY OTTO

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Telehealth: Making it Work
There’s a Better Way for America to Age in Place.
On April 22, 2010, U.S. Senator Bob Corker and the Senate Special Committee on Aging held a hearing entitled 'Aging in Place: The National Broadband Plan and Bringing Health Care Technology Home."
MATT BINIAKEWITZ

Magnolia Money Chips In: Mississippi Medicaid Funds Boost The MED
Mississippi will soon give the Regional Medical Center at Memphis (The MED) a financial bump, thanks to newly-approved Medicaid supplemental payments to the regional safety-net hospital that treats more than 3,000 Mississippians annually.
LYNNE JETER

Two Laboratory Reimbursement Extensions as Addressed by CMS
Reasonable Cost Payment for Rural Hospitals and Pathology Technical Component Payment has been in limbo, but recently the CMS addressed in two Medicare Learning Network Matters Articles. (See MLN Matters articles SE0931 and MM6873.)
BETTY HATTEN

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Scope of Practice: APNs Tout Primary Care Capabilities
For advance practice nurses (APNs), it’s a matter of simple math … the fastest-growing population segment is over 65, more than 30 million Americans will be added to the insurance rolls through healthcare reform, and the number of primary care physicians is decreasing. To fill the looming gaps, APNs want to ensure they are allowed to practice to the fullest extent of their training.
CINDY SANDERS

THE FLOOR IS YOURS
The new healthcare reform law will bring about substantial changes to our health system. Meanwhile, the fundamental elements of health policy to improve quality, lower cost, enhance access, and maintain patient autonomy were, at best, marginally addressed in the bill.
Steven M. Coplon, MHA, CMPE

MEDICAL ECONOMICS: The Rise of Medical Practice Embezzlement
The Medical Group Management Association says that practice embezzlement has been on the rise the last couple of years and is continuing to rise. Three out of four physicians will suffer some financial loss from employee dishonestly during their career. “Over a five year period, over three quarters of practices will experience some type of embezzlement or theft. And the sad thing is that seventy percent have done this in previous practices in which they have worked,” said Libby Wren, CMPE, Practice Administrator, Ear, Nose and Throat Group.
BILL APPLING

 Obesity Focus

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Fostering an Epidemic of Skin Cancer

Dermatologists Take Aim at Indoor Tanning
On an average day in America, more than 1 million people visit an indoor tanning salon. That’s why dermatologists nationwide have declared war on the practice, which research overwhelmingly has shown causes cancer.


SHARON H. FITZGERALD

 Reimbursements/ACOs Focus

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Playing Well With Others
Building Strong Relationships in an Evolving Environment
In theory, hospital administrators, physicians and nurses are all on the same team with the same ultimate goal — delivering the highest quality of patient care possible. In practice, those relationships are easily strained as fiscal realities, misaligned objectives and strong personalities are factored into the equation.
CINDY SANDERS

 Physician Spotlight

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Rex Amonette, MD
Rex Amonette, MD, revels in the science of medicine. As a dermatologist, he treats patients with melanomas, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Skin cancer can grow on any part of the skin, from the ears and scalp to arms and legs, anywhere, perhaps, except the soles of the feet. For many years, the standard way of removing a cancer from the skin was to cut it away or use radiation therapy. Doctors then relied on their observational skills to determine whether the procedure had been a success.
JANE SCHNEIDER

 Grand Rounds

Grand Rounds June