The National Institutes of Health has found that long periods of sedentary behavior among older women translates into a greater cardiovascular risk. Being less sedentary for one hour per day translates into a 26% reduction in heart disease and a 12% lower overall risk of cardiovascular disease. Osteopathic physicians should encourage older women (60+) to get up off the couch and move more. Any activity is beneficial. For more go to the press release. 

The CDC has released the 2017 death data showing the US life expectancy declined in 2017. According to the Associated Press, The nation is in the longest period of a generally declining life expectancy since the late 1910s, when World War I and the worst flu pandemic in modern history combined to kill nearly one million Americans.  

The CDC has developed and published a resource for primary care physicians to manage patients on long-term opioid therapy. CDC Guideline for Quality Improvement and Care Coordination: Implementing the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. The publication is intended to aid physicians to move the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain into clinical practice. 

If you are a KanCare provider and want to continue providing services to the Medicaid population, you need to enroll in the Kansas Medical Assistance Program and receive a provider identification (ID) number. KanCare MCOs will begin denying claims submitted without an ID number on January 1, 2019.  CMS Final Rule 2390F (KMAP Bulletin) requires all network providers to be KMAP enrolled and screened prior to receiving payment from an MCO. 

The rule applies to all provider types and specialties and is inclusive of billing, rendering, ordering, prescribing, referring, sponsoring and attending providers. KAOM recommends, to avoid claims denials you should have your KMAP application to the state by November 1. Please call KMAP Enrollment at 1-800-933-6593 to see if you have a current KMAP provider ID. 

KDHE has announced the selection and awarding of three contracts to Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) to serve the Kansas Medicaid program known as KanCare. The three MCOs are:

• Sunflower State Health Plan, Inc.
• United Healthcare, Midwest, Inc.
• Aetna Better Health of Kansas, Inc.

Kaiser Health News reports drugmakers that blocked generics of their brand name drugs by not selling samples have also raised prices on those drugs by double digits.  This has cost the United States billions. 

On May 16, 2018, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Lucemyra (lofexidine hydrochloride) to lessen withdrawal symptoms related to abrupt discontinuation of opioids in adults. Lucemyra is the first non-opioid approved for use in a long term treatment plan for managing opioid use disorder (OUD).  The drug is only approved for treatment for up to 14 days. It is not approved as a stand-alone treatment for OUD. The FDA granted approval of Lucemyra to US WorldMeds, LLC. Read the FDA news release.

The Kansas State Board of Healing Arts has notified KAOM a Kansas physician was contacted by a man who identified himself as being with the DEA. The physician was told she was "under investigation for illegal drugs" and that DEA agents would "come to her door and arrest her if she did not cooperate." The caller identified himself as Eric White and said his number was 800-882-9539. The DEA has confirmed this is clearly a scam and the DEA will not call the target of an investigation to tell them of the investigation. The DEA instructs physicians who receive a call like this to call 877-792-2873 (fraud number) or report it at www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov and to read this alert to advise your patients who have ordered medications over the internet.  The DEA also recommends filing a report with local authorities in case the scam is localized and not limited to using the DEA as the cover agent.  

From the AOA Morning Brief:

Dementia Patients Increasingly Being Given Antipsychotic Medications, Research Indicates.

NPR (5/7) reports that research “from the AARP Public Policy Institute finds that dementia patients living at home or in assisted living facilities are increasingly being given antipsychotic” medications, even though such medications “are not approved to treat dementia.” The study analyzed information from Medicare Advantage plans from 2012 to 2015. When the study began, “12.6 percent of dementia patients living at home or in assisted living had prescriptions for antipsychotic” medications, but “by the end of the...study period, 13.4 percent of dementia patients living at home or in assisted living had prescriptions for antipsychotic” medications.