By Guy A. Lee, MD
Middle-aged and older patients commonly present with neurogenic claudication, the classic nerve-related radiating leg and buttock pain caused by lumbar spinal stenosis. Imaging will typically show degenerative factors, including the narrowing of the midline sagittal spinal canal and possibly also narrowing between the facet superior articulating process, the posterior vertebral margin and nerve root canal.
The narrowing and compression of spinal stenosis is believed to cause leg, buttock and groin pain for about 1.2 million Americans. Those who experience mild or moderate symptoms typically have pain that …

The American Cancer Society has revised its recommendations regarding prostate cancer screening.  The new guidelines call for the patient to make an informed decision on whether to proceed with treatment.  This comes just a few months after experts recommended against regular mammograms for women.
According to the ACS, “men with no symptoms of prostate cancer who are in relatively good health and can expect to live at least 10 more years have the opportunity to make an informed decision with their doctor about screening after learning about the uncertainties, risks, and …

President Obama is determined to get health reform legislation passed and has incorporated into his plan four Republican-generated ideas from last week’s Health Summit.  In a letter sent to Congressional leaders, the president outlined items related to fraud, malpractice, reimbursements, and health savings accounts.  Obama will hit the road next week to garner support for his proposal.  He is scheduled for appearances in Philadelphia and St. Louis.

J. James Rohack, MD, president of the AMA, said “As we reach the final stage of health system reform, the AMA is pleased that …

By Richard Amerling, MD
The debate raging over ObamaCare has been carried on mostly by politicians, pundits, policy wonks and economists, with little input from those most intimately involved with delivery of health care—medical practitioners.  Doctors have too often been marginalized as self-interested.  If that were true, there would be far fewer practicing physicians.  Of course we are concerned with income, as are all taxpayers and businesses faced with rising costs and taxes.  Unlike other businesses, however, most doctors are unable to pass higher costs to consumers due to price controls on reimbursement.    When costs outpace …

From the AMA:
UPDATE:  Last night, the U.S. Senate voted yet again to delay the 21 percent Medicare physician payment cut for one month, postponing it until April 1. The Senate should use this time to permanently repeal the flawed Medicare physician payment formula that puts access to care for seniors and military families at risk.
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate’s failure to act before today’s 21 percent Medicare physician payment cut has put seniors at grave risk of reduced access to health care and choice of physician.
“The Senate had over a year …

“I don’t know that these gaps can be bridged.”  That quote by President Obama succinctly sums up the political theatre production of the Health Reform Summit, which yesterday played live for a nationally televised audience.
The Summit was billed as a bi-partisan effort to resuscitate health reform legislation.  But it was more cynically anticipated to be a show produced by the Obama administration to force passage of a Democratic-produced bill temporarily stalled by Republicans.  Basically, political theatre.
In his opening remarks at The Summit, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Ten.) listed several ideas vital …

You’re going to hear a lot this week about health reform as President Obama today released his plan in preparation for Thursday’s televised bi-partisan meeting, which is the administration’s effort to get reform back on track.  There’s not much new in Obama’s version of a bill, much of which takes proposals from the House version’s column A and combines it with the Senate’s column B.  Most of the ideas are centered around reeling in the insurance industry and paying for an additional 30 million or so uninsured.  There’s no mention …

By William A. Brenner, CPA
With the economic rollercoaster settling down, now is a great time for the management teams at medical practices to step back and think about how they can keep their practices successful for years to come. Many of the practices that I, and my colleagues at Citrin Cooperman, have consulted with recently had to make difficult decisions to retain (or regain) their profitability in order to ride through the recession.
Even though there may still be tough choices to make as the months roll on, here are 10 …

By:  Michael R. Burke, Esq.

In August 2009, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health & Human Services (“OIG”) issued a report entitled “Prevalence and Qualifications of Non-Physicians Who Performed Medicare Physician Services.”  In its report, the OIG studied services provided by certain physicians during the first quarter of 2007.  In its findings, the OIG noted that unqualified non-physicians performed 21% of the services that physicians did not perform personally.  Among other things, the OIG found these non-physicians did not possess the necessary licenses or certifications, had no …

Where you live can affect your health.  And now that theory has been documented and the results are online to view at CountyHealthRankings.org.
Researchers at The University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Foundation compared every county within each state.  The report is divided into two main categories.  First, they measured two types of health outcomes: how long people live (mortality) and how healthy people feel while alive (morbidity).  Mortality was defined as the number of premature deaths (before age 75).  For morbidity, they used the measures of health-related quality of life …