Healthcare providers including MDs, DOs, dentists, podiatrists, psychiatrists and chiropractors that work in a Health Professional Shortage Area (and meet the requirements) can apply for the Medicare Physician Bonus Program which qualifies for a 10% reimbursement bonus if they’re providing services to Medicare beneficiaries in a medical shortage area. Medical providers can check online to [...]
A new CDC report released this week gave a status update on the national Winnable Battle to reduce hospital associated infections. Not all medical procedures carry the same risk of infection, so the report uses something called a standardized infection ratio to compare infection rates among hospitals. It’s a complicated statistic, but basically, it divides [...]
We’re continuing to make significant progress in our licensing regulatory reform efforts. Our overall goal is to simplify and streamline our regulations so they align with our strategic plan and map to improve public health outcomes. The new regulations will more acutely focus on health and safety criteria- and will put more emphasis on outcomes. [...]
The effectiveness of a State’s EMS and Pre-Hospital & Trauma System makes the difference when it comes to saving lives (and quality of life) from injuries. Injuries are the leading cause of death for Arizonans from age 1 to 44- so you can see how important it is for states to have an effective EMS & [...]
The AZ Medical Marijuana Act requires us to periodically accept petitions to add new medical conditions to the list of conditions that qualify folks for an AZ Medical Marijuana Registration Card. In January, we accepted petitions from the public and had a public hearing in May. Folks submitted numerous articles as a part their petitions for PTSD 1; PTSD 2; Depression; Migraines; and Generalized [...]
You probably think I sound like a broken record because I’m always writing about obesity… but it really is the dominant public health issue of our time. Last week, the CDC released its latest Vital Signs report called "State-Specific Obesity Prevalence Among Adults – United States, 2009,"… which finds that nine states had an obesity [...]
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, an Initiative called the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act will be on the Ballot this November. We organized several teams (behavioral health, substance abuse, public health, licensure, rules, IT, and administrative council etc.) to examine the Initiative over the last few weeks. You can read a news article this week [...]
