In its latest report, the CDC said the number of cases is now growing or likely growing in at least 26 states and Washington, D.C. COVID-related emergency room visits for young kids are also the highest they've been since March, according to the data.
For decades, the prices Medicare pays doctors for different medical services have been largely decided not by Medicare itself, but by a powerful industry group, the American Medical Association.
An A.M.A. committee meets in secret to determine the difficulty and time demands of each type of medical visit, test and procedure, and then recommends to Medicare how much doctors should be paid for performing them. And for decades, critics have complained that this process unfairly rewards surgeons and other specialists, at the expense of primary care physicians and other generalists. Medicare officials have been loath to change it because it has spared them from needing their own staff and budget to make such pricing decisions, along with the unpleasant politics of adjudicating conflicts between competing groups of physicians.
But a change buried inside a 1,803-page proposed regulation published last Monday suggests the Trump administration would like to move away from this longstanding system. If finalized, it could begin overturning a process that has entrenched pay advantages for certain kinds of doctors. "We're modernizing Medicare by correcting outdated assumptions in how physician services are valued," said Chris Klomp, a deputy administrator of CMS, in an email.
The American healthcare system is approaching a crisis. Medical costs are rising far faster than the nation's ability to pay. Healthcare jobs are expanding rapidly, but clinical outcomes aren't improving. And the very professionals entrusted with healing others are burned out with many leaving the field.
Ascension Alexian Brothers Hospital may be one step closer to closing its labor and delivery unit. It's just the latest service to be eliminated at the suburban community hospital. Officials at the hospital say they'll discontinue the 28-bed inpatient obstetrics department and consolidate those services, including deliveries, at their sister hospital, Ascension Saint Alexius Medical Center, which is a few miles away in Hoffman Estates.
Think of AI as the new digital front door for healthcare practices. It's the invisible force working behind the scenes of Google searches, health apps and chatbots. Experience shows that successful practices are the ones that deeply understand their patients' decision-making processes.