
MASSDEVICE ON CALL — The Obama administration plans to send undercover agents to spy on doctors officers to survey the state of American health care access.
Concerned about the the shortage of primary care physicians, the administration is recruiting a team of "mystery shoppers" to call doctors offices and request appointments.
The survey will also try to discover whether there is a tendency for doctors to reject patients on government health insurance programs in favor of those with private insurance.
According to government documents, the stealthy surveyors will call doctors’ offices, ask if they are accepting new patients and determine how long the wait would be, the New York Times reported.
Many doctors were disconcerted by the news.
"If federal officials are worried about access to care, they could help us. They don’t have to spy on us," Dr Stephen Albrecht, a family doctor in Olympia, Wash., told the Times.
Federal health officials have promised that all information gathered will be kept confidential.
GAO report finds heart devices top recall list
The Government Accountability Office’s recent report on recall practices of the Food & Drug Administration found that heart devices are the most common source of recalls.
Within the report, which chided the FDA for failing to use recall data to proactively measure risks, the watchdog agency reported that 15 percent of all recalls, and 31 percent of class 1 recalls, applied to cardiovascular devices, Heartwire reported.
270 health groups call for IPAB repeal
About 270 stakeholder groups representing doctors, employers, drug and medical device manufacturers signed a letter to Congress urging them to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel of presidentially-appointed experts that will oversee Medicare payments, Healthwatch reported.
The IPAB technically only makes recommendations on Medicare, but those recommendations automatically go into effect unless Congress votes to block them.
"We believe that the IPAB sets a dangerous precedent for overriding the normal legislative process," the challengers wrote. "Congress is a representative body that has a duty to legislate on issues of public policy. Abdicating this responsibility to an unelected and unaccountable board removes our elected officials from the decision-making process for a program that millions of our nation’s seniors and disabled individuals rely upon."
IPAB is getting a bum rap, says Sebelius
Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius challenged critics of the IPAB in a column on Politico.com, defending the board against critics who call it a rationing board and allege that it will limit Medicare payments and care for seniors.
"Nothing could be further from the truth," Sebelius wrote. "It is expressly prohibited from making recommendations that ration care, raise premiums, reduce benefits or change eligibility for Medicare. These restrictions are clearly spelled out in the law."
Sebelius argued that the GOP alternative, which turns Medicare into a voucher system, "shifts the cost burden to seniors and Americans with disabilities, while allowing health care costs to continue spiraling out of control."
Residents need more sleep, health care group says
A group of 26 leaders in medicine, health care, patient safety and research called for sweeping changes in U.S. hospital residency care programs in an effort to protect patients from medical errors that result from dangerously long work hours for physicians in training.
"The current system amounts to an abuse of patient trust," said Dr. Lucian Leape in the release, adjunct professor of health policy at the Harvard School of Public Health and a co-author of the report. "Few people enter a hospital expecting that their care and safety are in the hands of someone who has been working a double-shift or more with no sleep. If they knew, and had a choice, the overwhelming majority would demand another doctor or leave."
The report was published in the June 24 issues of the online journal Nature & Science of Sleep.