Earlier this month, the AANS and CNS submitted several comment letters to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding a number of issues contained in the proposed 2014…
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The Congress Quarterly (cnsq) is the official newsmagazine of the CNS and is designed to reflect the changing nature of neurosurgery and foster discussion about the core being of the…
Starting on Aug. 1, 2013, the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which was part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), will require manufacturers of drugs, medical devices and biologics to report…
In the recently published July/August edition of Washington Monthly an article by Haley Sweetland Edwards entitled, “Special Deal” is completely outrageous in its attempt to paint specialists as a “shadowy…
For many years, healthcare policy researchers have put forward the notion that Medicare spending variations across the U.S. are solely due to wasteful practices and overtreatment — an idea that…
Today, by a vote of 51 to zero, the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed H.R. 2810, the Medicare Patient Access and Quality Improvement Act. This bipartisan legislation to repeal…
Guest Post from Alliance’s spokesperson Alex Valadka, MD Chief Executive Officer of the Seton Brain and Spine Institute Austin, Texas Earlier this month, I attended the Alliance of Specialty Medicine…
As one neurosurgeon put it, “After finishing my last day of seven, 24-hour days, on-call, removing a brain tumor, stabilizing a fractured spine, and finally spending hours with a grieving…
Last week, the talk of the town (amongst healthcare stakeholders) was about the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s draft legislative proposal for repealing Medicare’s sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula. While…
On April 30, 2013, in a letter to acting CMS administrator, Marilyn Tavenner, Medicare’s acting chief actuary, Paul Spitalnic, wrote that the spending triggers for the Independent Payment Advisory Board…