News From Around the Web
> Eleven medical schools each have won five-year, $1 million grants for education innovation from the American Medical Association, according to a recent article in American Medical News. The grants are part of an initiative AMA hopes will fuel curriculum changes to better prepare future doctors for leadership roles in team-based care. Article
Medical Imaging News
> The growing deficit, a sluggish economy and rising healthcare costs have focused attention on cutting healthcare spending, and since Medicare is a primary source of funding for graduate medical education, residency training could take some budget hits, according to an article published in the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Article
> The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services--responding to concerns levied by medical imaging groups--issued a final decision on coverage of oncology FDG-PET scans in which it determined that it will pay for three follow-up scans instead of just one, as initially proposed several months ago. Under the final rule, coverage of any additional scans beyond the three will be determined by local Medicare Administrative Contractors. In addition, CMS' decision means that the use of FDG PET/CT, when used to guide subsequent anti-tumor strategies for patients with prostate cancer, should remain at the local contract level. Article
Health Insurance News
> If insurers want to be successful in a consumer-oriented market, they should make their business fit into their consumers' lives rather than forcing consumers to adjust and accommodate the insurance business, Tom Paul, chief consumer officer at UnitedHealth, told FierceHealthPayer in part one of a two-part interview based on his presentation at the AHIP Institute in Las Vegas last week. Article
> The health insurance industry is in a major state of flux right now as the payer community is "starting to really gets its arms around what's next" while figuring out how it will compete and succeed in the new healthcare marketplace, Ray Desrochers, HealthEdge executive vice president, told FierceHealthPayer. That's one of the conclusions he reached based on preliminary results of 100 responses to a HealthEdge survey released Thursday at the AHIP Institute in Las Vegas. Article
And Finally... This just sounds gross. Article