Today’s Top Story
FDA to consider mandatory training for opioid prescribers.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is contemplating whether to require training courses for physicians who prescribe opioid pain medication. A panel of advisers to the FDA will be meeting with the agency tomorrow and Wednesday to discuss FDA’s review of its current risk management protocol, which rests on voluntary training funded by pharmaceutical companies. FDA figures reveal that under the largely voluntary approach crafted 4 years ago—before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had deemed opioid overdoses an epidemic—only 37,500 of the targeted number of 80,000 physicians had participated in the training as of March 2015. In its briefing for the upcoming meeting, FDA notes that it supports mandatory training for opioid prescribers but that Congressional action is required to impose it.
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See the FDA meeting agenda…
Other News
Study finds no association between gout and radiographic OA.
A study published in BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders finds no statistically significant association between gout and hand, knee, and foot osteoarthritis (OA). The study does suggest, however, that people with gout may be more likely to have OA involvement of small joints in the hand and foot, but less likely to have large joint OA at the knee, compared to those without gout. The cross-sectional analysis involved three observational cohorts of patients aged 50 years or younger with hand, knee, and foot pain. Patients were divided into two groups: those with gout (n = 53) and those without gout (n= 211). Each of the gout patients was matched by age and gender to patients without gout. After adjusting for body mass index, diuretic use, and site of joint pain, regression analysis found no statistically significant associations between gout and the presence, frequency, and severity of radiographic hand, knee, or foot OA. However, individuals with gout had increased odds of having nodal hand OA and foot OA, but decreased odds of tibiofemoral or patellofemoral OA in either knee.
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Survey: Patients most irked by customer service lapses.
A survey that combed through online reviews by patients found that 96 percent of their complaints relate to wait times and communication issues, while just 4 percent focused on quality of care or misdiagnosis. Vanguard Communications conducted an automated analysis of more than 34,000 patient reviews of their physicians and found that among the complaints categorized as customer service–related, 53 percent related to communication, 35 percent to wait times and waiting rooms, 12 percent to practice staff, and 2 percent to billing. In the compliments category, 40 percent of the “5 star” comments related to bedside manner, 28 percent to practice staff, and 24 percent to communication. Vanguard noted that the large majority of patients are eager to compliment their doctors, and seem least tolerant of surprises that come in the form of practice hassles versus those stemming from medical results.
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Read the survey results…
Study identifies risk factors for late-presenting DDH.
According to a study published online in the journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research, cephalic presentation at birth and history of swaddling are risk factors for late-presenting developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) in infants. The researchers retrospectively reviewed prospectively collected data from a multicenter database on 392 infants aged 18 months or younger with DDH. Only infants with fully dislocated hips were included in the study. Patients were divided into two groups: early-presenting (< 3 months of age; n = 259) and late-presenting (3–18 months of age; n = 133). The researchers used univariate/multivariate analysis to compare baseline demographics between the groups. Late-presenting patients were more likely to have had a cephalic presentation than early-presenting patients (88 percent versus 65 percent). Late-presenting patients were also more likely than early-presenting patients to have had a history of swaddling (40 percent versus 25 percent). No differences were found between the two groups for sex, birth presentation, birth weight, maternal age, maternal parity, gestational age, or family history.
Read the study…
California.
The California Medical Association (CMA) has joined with the American Medical Association and other groups in a call for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to reconsider its plan to restructure Medicare reimbursement for physicians for Part B drugs. Among the objections raised by the CMA and others are that the “average sales price” that forms a basis for the reimbursement amount does not reflect the true prices paid by many physician practices with low-volume purchases. The proposed payment structure, the CMA states, “fails to address the underlying causes of rising drug costs, reduces the amount of payment to physicians, and increases patient cost-sharing,” and it disproportionately affects practices that are small, rural, or located in economically disadvantaged areas. The “heart of the problem,” the CMA contends, is that drug prices are controlled by manufacturers, not physicians, and the CMS proposal will lead to physicians no longer providing affected drugs in their practices.
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AAOS seeks comments for Management of Rotator Cuff Problems CPG.
AAOS is conducting a survey regarding an upcoming clinical practice guideline (CPG) on the management of rotator cuff problems. The purpose of the survey is to collect clinician topic suggestions for the CPG, which is in the early stages of development. Aggregated suggestions from the survey will be anonymously presented to the guideline workgroup.
Take the survey…
