Visits with PAs have shorter wait times
By Christopher Doscher, news editor, AAPA News
A recent report by the health care research firm Press Ganey Associates stated that patients report higher satisfaction when scheduling an appointment with a PA than when trying to schedule an appointment with another health professional at the office. PAs were rated higher than physicians, nurse practitioners, therapists, midwives, and medical residents by patients when asked about their “ease of scheduling an appointment,” according to the 2007 Physician's Office and Outpatient Pulse Report, which examined the experiences of more than 4.6 million patients at 6,163 physician offices and more than 2,500 outpatient facilities nationwide. Patients seen by PAs reported an average waiting time of 19.8 minutes, the second lowest of the provider types mentioned in the report. Therapists had the lowest average waiting time (14.2 minutes). Patients seen by nurse practitioners or midwives reported average waiting times of 20.6 minutes. Physicians' patients reported waiting times of 23.4 minutes, while those seen by residents reported an average waiting time of 29 minutes.
New tamper-resistant prescription law
By Doug Scott and Hillel Kuttler, AAPA News staff
Health care providers who treat Medicaid patients are required to use tamper-resistant prescription pads, electronic prescribing, or faxes for all their Medicaid patients as of October 1. The rule is an effort to clamp
down on Medicaid fraud and is part of the US Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act of 2007, passed by Congress in May. The relevant section of the bill is designed to prevent Medicaid patients from illegally obtaining controlled substances. The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that the requirement will save the federal government $510 million over a 10-year period.
States that do not comply with the new law will be denied federal reimbursement for Medicaid prescriptions. On August 17, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced final guidelines for implementing the measure. CMS stated that the requirement applies to “all outpatient drugs, including over-the-counter drugs in states that reimburse for prescriptions for such items.” However, “to the extent permissible under state and federal law and regulation,” the guidelines do not restrict the emergency filling of a prescription for noncontrolled substances or “controlled dangerous substances” which the prescriber provides the pharmacy verbally, by fax, or electronically within 72 hours of its being filled. The requirement also does not apply to refills of written prescriptions that are presented to pharmacies before October 1 or to those presented by the prescriber electronically, by fax, or by telephone. Exceptions to the tamper-proof requirement are made “for drugs provided in nursing facilities, intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded, and other specified institutional and clinical settings,” CMS stated.
Tamper-proof prescription pads list the name of the health professional—and for PAs, must also list their supervising physician's name. The pads are made from “watermark” paper so that if copying or duplication is attempted, the word “void” will appear. By October 1, 2007, prescription pads must contain a design that prevents unauthorized copying of “a completed or blank” prescription form, a design that prevents “the erasure or modification” of the prescriber's written information, or a design meant to prevent the use of counterfeit prescription forms. By October 1, 2008, all three of these features must be present. To learn more about the new guidelines, visit the CMS Web site, www.cms.hhs.gov.
Search for AAPA EVP under way
AAPA's EVP Search Committee has contracted with Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA) to conduct an executive search to find a replacement for AAPA Executive Vice President/CEO Steve Crane, who resigned effective August 31. Mary Ettari, AAPA chair of the board/immediate past president, said that the search committee, which she chairs, was impressed with RRA's proposal for selecting a new CEO. “They will build on our ideas. They bring known strengths and extensive knowledge to the search process to help the Academy achieve its goal of selecting a progressive executive vice president who will take the PA profession into the next century,” she stated.