Health Law & Policy

AAO develops task forces to evaluate academy, review outcomes in ophthalmology.

The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Affordable Care Act remains valid, rejecting a claim by several states that a recent change to the law made it unconstitutional.

Michael X. Repka, MD, vice chair of clinical practice at Wilmer Eye Institute (Johns Hopkins University) speaks on the institution's latest protocol changes allowing for the resumption of elective surgery as well as the adaptations clinicians have had to make in order to ensure the continuation of clinical practice at Wilmer Eye Institute.

Ancient election offers lesson to modern voters

Legislators will try to sort out a fair compensation system for physicians after they staved off a scheduled 27.4% pay cut for those who treat Medicare patients.

While physicians who treat Medicare patients are confronting a drastic pay cut Jan. 1, a number of legislators are scrambling, again, to block the scheduled reduction with a permanent solution.

Organizations representing ophthalmologists and other physicians' groups are urging Congress to find a solution this year to the flawed payment formula that requires physicians to take a 29.5% pay cut in January 2012.

Dramatic changes are coming to the way Medicare will pay physicians for their services, but savvy practices that voluntarily adopt the reporting procedures can financially benefit from incentives offered now.

After putting physicians on the brink of a massive pay cut 5 times during 2010, legislation has been passed that buys a year of stability while a better method is sought for paying those who treat Medicare patients.

As the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services prepares to implement a 23.5% pay cut on Dec. 1, physicians who treat Medicare patients are pleading with Congres to intervene and considering their options.

After enduring a week-long 21.2% pay cut, ophthalmologists and other physicians who see Medicare patients will receive a 2.2% pay increase, retroactive to June 1 through Nov. 30.

As yet another deadline challenges Congress to avert a 21.3% pay cut to physicians who treat Medicare and Medicaid patients, groups representing the nation's physicians say they do not support a proposal that fails to change the formula behind the cut.

After years of wrangling in court with two former regional manufacturer's representatives, officials at STAAR Surgical Co. hope a $4 million settlement will allow it to move forward with new products and solidify its financial status.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery are among 25 groups urging Congress to solve the Medicare physician payment problem.

As members of the healthcare industry try to unravel the comprehensive health reform legislation that President Obama signed into law March 23, they are voicing concerns about such issues as patient access, payment for physicians, the creation of a new oversight board, and new taxes on medical devices.

As Congress continues to debate health-care reform and how best to pay physicians for providing medical care to the nation's neediest and elderly people, ophthalmologists are increasingly frustrated by the instability it wreaks upon their practices.

J.C. Noreika, MD, MBA, submitted a letter to Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), outlining nine possible unintended consequences to health-care reform.

Allergan is asking a federal judge to permit the company to talk freely with physicians regarding off-label use of Botox.

In this editorial, one movie teaches two people life lessons about trust and money. These issues also seem to be the center of debate about the U.S. health care system.

While ophthalmology has traveled down the road harnessed to organized medicine and thereby exposed to all of the exploding impediments to practice, dentistry has alertly remained aloof to these changes and continues to be viable, productive, and secure.

It is imperative, especially in uncertain economic times, for physicians to be thoroughly familiar with Medicare's National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI). This initiative was put forth in 1996 in order to promote correct coding and to serve as a ready mechanism by which to reduce improper coding.

Intercast Europe has made Augen Optics an authorized distributor of NXT Rx performance sunlenses. Intercast is a business of PPG Industries.