By ALLAN DOBZYNIAK, MD
Blaming physicians for the “opioid crisis” is so far off the mark as to be potentially harmful. Then throw in pharmaceutical companies, and politics has definitely been substituted for truth. On “Face the Nation” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christi, chair of the president’s opioid commission, blamed overprescribing doctors. He said, “This crisis started not on a street corner somewhere. This crisis started in the doctors’ offices and hospitals of America.” In the following discussion I will not even mention the significant contribution to the crisis related to the obsession with pain management by JCAHO, Medicare, Medicaid and finally by private insurance companies. But remember it was [Read More]

The state is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit claiming the Department of Technology, Management and Budget showed “blatant favoritism” in awarding a $657 million contract for the Healthy Kids Dental Program.

The state says MCNA Insurance Company’s suit filed in Ingham County should be dismissed “because disappointed bidders lack standing to challenge a public bid process,” according to court documents.

The state further alleges the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over MCNA’s appeal because DTMB’s award recommendation was not a final decision by a judicial agency.

“The state’s attempt to dismiss the case, on a technicality, sends a clear message: It believes DTMB’s procurement decisions are immune from judicial review and it [Read More]

The Genesee County Medical Society presents a Dinner Business Meeting and Medical Community Town Hall

Mindfulness: its Importance to the Medical Community and Patients
February 1, 2018
Flint Golf Club
3100 Lakewood Drive
Flint, MI 48507

Physicians, Practice Managers, and Health Care Professionals Welcome!
$40.00 – GCMS Members, Spouses, Practice Managers, & Staff
$40.00 – Genesee County Osteopathic Association Physician Members & Spouses
$25.00 – Residents & Students
$75.00 – All Non-Member Guests

Evening Schedule:
6 pm, Registration & Social Hour
6:30 pm, Dinner
7 pm, Meeting
7:15 pm, Presentations

Space is limited!
Please register by January 25, 2018
Please mail your reservation payment to:
Genesee County Medical Society
4438 Oak Bridge Drive, Suite B
Flint, MI 48532
Email Sherry at [Read More]

(FLINT) – A Wayne State University professor testified that Michigan’s chief medical executive consistently tried to blame Genesee County hospitals for the 2014 and 2015 Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks in Flint.

Shawn McElmurry, who led a team of researchers trying to identify the source of the outbreak that is attributed to 12 deaths, also testified Dec. 20 at the preliminary exam for Dr. Eden Wells that he told Gov. Rick Snyder that the team’s study “wasn’t going well” and he could use his help to carry out much-needed testing.

“It was made clear to me I don’t (report) directly to the governor,” McElmurry testified. ” . . . It was made clear to [Read More]

By JOHN DALEY
Colorado Public Radio

Seven years ago, Robert Kerley, who makes his living as a truck driver, was loading drywall when a gust of wind knocked him off the trailer. Kerley fell 14 feet and hurt his back.

For pain, a series of doctors prescribed him a variety of opioids: Vicodin, Percocet and OxyContin.

In less than a year, the 45-year-old from Federal Heights, Colo., said he was hooked. “I spent most of my time high, laying on the couch, not doing nothing, falling asleep everywhere,” he said.

Kerley lost weight. He lost his job. His relationships with his wife and kids suffered. He remembers when he hit rock bottom: One night hanging [Read More]

By EWA MATUSZEWSKI
CEO MedNetOne Health Solutions

For years, there’s been a concerted effort by insurance companies to halt the number of unnecessary visits to the Emergency Department. (Note – it is no longer a room.) This was a wise move designed to contain overall health care costs and excessive—and often unmerited—testing. While numbers are still too high, there’s been a decrease in the number of visits over the past several years.

That’s good news, the education on not using the ED like a physician’s office is working! Yet the shift from the ED to urgent care clinics or primary care physicians, where patients’ nonemergent needs are best met, resulted in reduced fees [Read More]

By SARAH HILLEGONDS
Wachler & Associates, P.C.

In today’s mobile society, it is important that physicians are reminded of the requirement to maintain current, accurate mailing information with the appropriate state and federal agencies for licensing and Medicare and/or Medicaid billing purposes. There are significant potential consequences if a physician has an inaccurate address on file, fails to regularly check the mailbox connected to the address on file, or does not timely report a change in mailing address or practice location.

For state licensing, under the Michigan Public Health Code, Act 368 of 1978, physicians have a duty to notify the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (“LARA”) of a change in [Read More]

By PETER LEVINE, MPH

Recently, it was reported on CNN that a county in Great Britain has announced a controversial policy to “support patients whose health is at risk from smoking or being very overweight.” The plan for the local clinical commissioning group is to “delay access to routine or non-urgent surgery under the National Health Service until patients improve their health.” Criteria have been established for the time limits and percentage of weight loss required for those with a BMI of over 30 and over 40. For smokers to have elective surgeries would require a patient to go eight weeks or more without a cigarette. They would have to take [Read More]

By ALLAN DOBZYNIAK, MD

The practice of medicine was not a political exercise for centuries. Now it seems more political and proscribed than thoughtful, deliberative or even analytical. The educated experienced physician exercising judgment and guidance for a unique individual, his or her patient, has been increasingly replaced by rules, regulations, mandates, laws, schemes and perverse incentives. These have been mostly at the hands of non-professional administrators and bureaucrats. That medical professionals have been cajoled into participating in this evolution acknowledges physicians acceptance of such questionable transitions in rendering care.

Politics, laws, and the burgeoning onerous administrative state are not intrinsic to the medical profession. How this occurred, has been allowed to [Read More]

By PETER DOMAS
Dickinson Wright

Over the past decade, the health care industry has been accustomed to being center stage in political debates, but while medical providers and facilities did not have a prominent role in the latest political drama, the far-reaching effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, will impact almost everyone delivering health care goods and services. In addition to the reduction of personal tax rates, the following provisions will likely be most applicable to health care providers:

1. Reduced Business Tax Rates

The tax rate for businesses taxed as corporations was reduced from 35 percent to 21 percent, and entities taxed as a partnership, S corporation, or sole [Read More]