Medicare reimbursement has been front and center on Capitol Hill over the past several months. The involvement of practicing psychologists across the country in grassroots advocacy played a key role in ensuring the enactment of several laws extending the 5% payment restoration for Medicare psychotherapy services and preventing the 21.3% Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) cut. Without your support, these essentia ...

I am pleased to report that Congress has finally sent legislation to the President to postpone the 21.3% Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) cut retroactive to June 1 and through November 30, 2010.  The House approved the stand-alone bill (HR 3962) by an overwhelming vote of 417-1.  The roll call will be made available at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2010/roll393.xml.  The measure previously passed the Senate unani ...

Jeff Cook from the American Psychological Association Practice Organization is currently providing updates on the impending Congressional vote expected this evening related to the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR). This is an extremely important event for healthcare providers who accept health insurance, especially Medicare/Medicaid. I will condense his hour-by-hour updates in this post, but will create a new p ...

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half." - John Wanamaker, 19th-century U.S. department store pioneer. In a study with implications for the advertising industry and public health organizations, UCLA neuroscientists have shown they can use brain scanning to predict whether people will use sunscreen during a one-week period even better than the people themselv ...

A new study led by a Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center researcher shows that millions of cancer survivors are forgoing needed medical care because of concerns about cost. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study raises the concern that the long-term health and well-being of cancer survivors could suffer because patients have financial wo ...

Electronic health record (EHR) systems likely will soon become a fixture in medical settings. Advocates claim they will reduce health care costs and improve medical outcomes, which could be critical since the new health care reform law increases access for millions of Americans. Although benefits of bringing information technology to health records can be substantial, EHR systems also give rise to increased ...

Encouraging physical activity is vital to positive health outcomes and is a worthwhile public health goal. Although most public schools have some recreational facilities that could be used outside of regular school hours, concerns over liability have limited their use. In a study in the July issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers reviewed the recreational use statues in all 50 sta ...

Despite hopes that higher blood levels of vitamin D might reduce cancer risk, a large study finds no protective effect against non-Hodgkin lymphoma or cancer of the endometrium, esophagus, stomach, kidney, ovary, or pancreas. In this study, carried out by researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and many other research institutions, data based on blood ...

We recently reported that the Senate had passed a stand-alone measure to postpone the 21.3% Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) cut retroactive to June 1 and through November 30, 2010.  House leadership declined to take up the bill until the Senate considers jobs provisions that previously passed the House with the SGR fix as part of the controversial tax extenders package. Included in this announcement is a spec ...

Young girls who drink soda have less healthy diets through adolescence than their peers who do not drink soda, according to a Penn State study. The ten-year study showed that girls who drank soda at age five had diets that were less likely to meet nutritional standards for the duration of the study, which ended at age 15. Girls who did not drink soda at age five did not meet certain nutritional requirements ...