The most widely circulated general medical journal in the world is launching a series on the health impact of climate change.

The series from JAMA “is intended to stimulate improved knowledge and understanding of the health effects of climate change to help foster commitment to timely action to prevent adverse health events from climate change,” says an introductory “JAMA Insights” article.

“Action and leadership should begin now to improve resilience in health systems and minimize the contribution of medical practice to climate change. Sustained and meaningful investment to reduce climate change and mitigate its effect on health are needed. Without this, adverse health consequences of climate change will continue to increase,” says the article, written by Kristie L. Ebi, PhD, and Jeremy J. Hess, MD, MPH, of the University of Washington Center for Health and Global Environment in Seattle. In addition to writing the first article in the series, Ebi and Dr. Hess will serve as guest editors to further develop it.

The JAMA series is part of a wider movement in medicine to understand climate change’s health impact and take action to address it.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today announced a program of accelerated payments to Medicare Part A providers and advance payments to Part B providers to help stem the immense financial fallout of the February cyberattack on the claims-processing systems of Change Healthcare, a subisidiary of UnitedHealth Group.

The move comes in the wake of forceful advocacy from the AMA calling for additional relief for physicians given the estimated $100 million daily impact of the outage on the health care industry.

My latest for the AMA. Read the whole shebang.

The Department of Health and Human Services is responding to pleas from the AMA and others for regulatory flexibility to help ease the major disruptions in claims processing and payment linked to the cyber outage at UnitedHealth Group subsidiary Change Healthcare. While the AMA appreciates the flexibilities that HHS and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced, the administration needs to go further to provide relief for physicians.

“Many physician practices operate on thin margins, and we are especially concerned about the impact on small and/or rural practices, as well as those that care for the underserved,” said AMA President Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, MD, MPH. “The AMA urges federal officials to go above and beyond what has been put in place and include financial assistance such as advanced payments for physicians.”

The cybersecurity-linked outage is costing the health care industry an estimated $100 million a day.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.

The U.S. Congress has again failed to stop in its entirety a pay cut that will threaten Medicare patients’ access to high-quality physician care.

In a federal budget deal struck to continue operating the government, the House of Representatives has voted to reduce by about half—1.68%—of the 2024 3.37% across-the-board physician pay cut that took effect in January. The Senate is expected to vote for the deal Thursday, and the new pay rate starts March 9.

The cut comes on top of last year’s 2% Medicare physician pay reduction, and the new payment rate is not retroactive.

My latest for the AMA. The whole shebang.