Category: Members
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President’s Statement on Coronavirus COVID-19
We now have thirty-two confirmed cases of the new coronavirus infection in Alabama. We have all seen how this new virus has spread around the world from its beginning in China just a few months ago. The World Health Organization has now classified this as a pandemic. However, please remember that compared to the flu,…
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Shift in Patient’s Right to Access Medical Records
By: Kelli C. Fleming, Burr & Forman The Office of Civil Rights (“OCR”), the government agency tasked with HIPAA compliance and enforcement, recently announced a change impacting a patient’s right to access his/her medical records—a change which is, given OCR’s history, surprisingly favorable to providers. One of the long-standing premises of HIPAA has been a…
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Appropriate Use Criteria for Advanced Diagnostic Imaging
Contributed by: Gregg Everett, Gilpin Givhan The Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) was passed in 2014. PAMA required the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to establish a program that promotes “Appropriate Use Criteria” (AUC) for advanced diagnostic imaging. AUC’s are evidence-based criteria that assist professionals who order and furnish certain imaging services…
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Better Together: Physician-Lead, Team-Based Care
Working as a team is unquestionably the best and most efficient way to maximize the skill sets of a specific group of people. In medicine and depending on the particular needs of the practice, a team-based approach can include various combinations of physicians, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, social workers, case managers and other health care…
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Physician Burnout
BACKGROUND While employees in many professions report burnout, physicians appear uniquely susceptible and the consequences can be detrimental. Physicians are fifteen times more likely to suffer burnout than other professions and statistics indicate that at a given time…
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Outpatient Visit Evaluation & Management Changes for 2021
For more than 25 years, the American Medical Association has utilized the 1995 or 1997 guidelines for Evaluation and Management (E/M) services in the Current Procedural Terminology (CPT). The E/M codes have expanded over the years but until now, there has been no update to the elements, in which, we choose a level of service.…
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Call for Elective Offices
The following are positions for offices in the Medical Association which will be elected at the 2020 Business Session. Nominations for statewide offices are presented through a Nominating Committee process. District offices (*) are nominated from district caucuses. Qualified candidates shall have been regular, government or academic employee members of the association for at least…
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PEEHIP Transitioning to Humana Effective January 1st
Medicare-eligible retirees of the Public Education Employees’ Health Insurance Plan (PEEHIP) will be moving to the Humana Group Medicare Advantage Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plan for their healthcare coverage, effective January 1, 2020. Humana will be hosting a series of webinars as they lead up to the PEEHIP transition on January 1st. These will be…
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Closing Your Medical Practice – Calling it Quits!
There is a lot of media attention to “Baby Boomers” retiring with more than 10,000 leaving the workplace every day. Anyone closing a business has a list of items to address before selling the business or closing the doors, but there is a unique set of considerations when a physician practice owner elects to retire…
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Doctors Unite in Support of Physician Office Exemption
We called and you answered! Thank you to all the physicians who answered the urgent call-to-action and quickly signed on to the Medical Association letter (more than 600 doctors to date!) challenging the Alabama Hospital Association (ALAHA) and its member facilities’ contentions about the appropriateness of the physician office exemption (POE) from CON review. As you know,…