IN MY OPINION

According to a recent FAFP (Florida Academy of Family Physicians) communication, AHCA has informed the FAFP that the logistics for increasing Medicaid rates to Medicare levels will most likely not be completed until sometime in April, yet confirmed that retroactive payments will be made to make up the increases due for services billed between January 1 and implementation. One of several complicating factors is deciding how payments will be made to the managed care companies and then passed through to the physicians.  

That's an important issue because I just received a contract asking me to join the Preferred Medical Plan as a provider offering $15 reimbursement per Medicaid patient! I guess the private insurance companies will benefit greatly from the Medicaid expansion and the "increased" reimbursement for physicians will follow the trickle down economics model. 

So who will gain from the federal subsidies? The private corporations and NOT the patients nor the physicians. Again, privatizing the profits and socializing the risk! Nothing changes!

Dr. Wollschlaeger is a frequent contributor to FHIweekly and Specialty Focus. You can read more of his articles by visiting
http://floridadocs.blogspot.com/.

Attached a link to an interesting article published...<recently in the>... Miami Herald highlighting the proliferation of so-called anti-aging clinics in South Florida whose unscrupulous operators are peddling steroids and growth hormones. I also recommend reading the excellent commentary by Fred Grimm. I hope that my fellow colleagues will join me in the effort to curtail the (ab)use of steroids and growth hormone products which can have serious and detrimental health effects.  

We should point out those so-called "doctors" who are profiting from promoting the use of steroids for muscle-building and human growth hormone (hGH). We should make it clear to those "doctors" that federal law prohibits the use of such substances except for rare circumstances such as growth retardation. Instead, those "doctors" are promoting the use of human growth hormone therapy to treat patients suffering from low energy, increased fat or a slowing sex drive. Now is time to act and to speak up.

About the Author
Dr. Wollschlaeger is a frequent contributor to FHIweekly and Specialty Focus. You can read more of his articles by visiting
http://floridadocs.blogspot.com/.

Failure to Expand Medicaid: Just Another Death Penalty?

For many, the fight over whether or not to expand Medicaid is just about the money. But they overlook the fact that the lives of more than 36,000 people may hang in the balance.

That's the conclusion that can be drawn from a study published last summer in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was entitled Mortality and Access to Care Among Adults After State Medicaid Expansions. In it, the authors calculated the numbers of lives saved as a result of an earlier Medicaid expansion in three states.

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-Paul Gionfriddo, Our Health Policy Matters

Medicaid Expansion Can Backfire:  Witnesses

Cautionary tales of how two states expanded their Medicaid programs in the past and lived to regret it made a big impression on members of the Florida Senate Select Committee on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act...

<graphs were shown>... displaying how fast the enrollment and expenses went up in Arizona and Maine after those states extended coverage to childless adults under the poverty level.

Covering those adults turned out to be 2 1/2 times more costly than the forecast...

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-Carol Gentry, Health News Florida

Observations by davidk

About that surgery.  Yeah, the sciatica.  The story I told went straight to the event, bypassing, (if you'll excuse the medical expression) the setup. 

Having been through the Sports Doctor and his attempts, (including physical therapy, exercise and cortisone), and subsequently the Pain Doctor (which encompassed Morphine, Vicodin and ultimately a series of epidural shots in my back), to no avail, I might add, I sought the next level.   

So having had no relief, I visited Dr. Miracle, the surgeon. (Not his real name. I don't want to get sued for writing, any more than he wants to be sued for...

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Our Health Policy Matters

All over the country, governors are finally beginning to propose new mental health services funding in the aftermath of last year's mass shootings in Aurora and Sandy Hook.

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About the Author

Gun Safety and Physicians

Attached a link to an article titled “The Pediatricians vs. the NRA" published on slate.com. We need to continue pushing for the implementation of common-sense gun safety measures and doctors play an important role to communicate this issue with their patients.

-Bernd Wollschlaeger, MD. Please visit my new website: www.bwollschlaeger.com


Should doctors be required to ask patients about guns?

Recently both President Obama and the AMA have called for physicians to talk with their patients about gun ownership, especially if they sense mental health issues. This request sounds innocuous enough, but let's explore the implications and the reality here. First I need to issue a disclaimer. I am neither a member of the NRA...Read More >>>

-David Mokotoff, MD