The Time for Tort Reform is NOW
Okay Arkansas physicians, here is your chance to have real tort reform. The Arkansas Medical Society has joined with a diverse group of organizations to help pass SJR 8, a constitutional amendment referred to the voters by the Arkansas General Assembly. SJR 8 will appear on the November 2018 general…
Statewide Rx Take Back October 28
The Arkansas State Crime Laboratory and Medical Examiner’s Office report that hundreds of Arkansans died in 2016 from drug overdoses, with nearly 40 percent of those deaths from Pulaski, Sebastian, and Washington counties. Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge is encouraging Arkansans to clean out their medicine cabinets, and…
Arkansans for Jobs and Justice Launches Campaign for Real Tort Reform in Arkansas
Little Rock - A coalition representing a diverse group of Arkansans has joined together to support commonsense reforms that will help make Arkansas more competitive with surrounding states and protect everyday Arkansans. Paperwork was filed today for Arkansans for Jobs and Justice to advocate for the passage of…
Arkansas in Top Five Best States to Practice
For more than a decade, Physicians Practice has examined practice conditions in every U.S. state, ranking the best states for physicians to either set up their own shop or become employed. It is an often duplicated exercise by other publications, but an important one nonetheless. With rising rates of physician…
Latest Newsletter Now Available
The October 2017 issue of AMS NewsBriefs has been distributed via email and printed mail. Members, if you did not receive a copy, please give us a call to update your subscription preferences at 800-542-1058. The issue is available online in the Publications section as well as excerpts…
ABCBS Reduces Reimbursement for Individual Market Plans
AMS has learned that the state's largest insurance carrier, Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield will reduce reimbursements to its provider network effective January 1, 2018. The reduction applies only to the carrier's individual metallic health plans (i.e. not group health plans), which include the Arkansas Works Medicaid…
Arkansas’ Upgrade to a New Medicaid Management Information System
New MMIS Healthcare Portal Official Go-live Date is November 1, 2017. This is the new way claims will transmitted to Medicaid. In preparation for this transition, many activities leading up to November 1 will be taking place. Learn more in the October issue of the ARMedicaid Insider. The issue…
Enrollment for the Arkansas Medicaid Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Program is Open Until October 31
New requirement for enrollment eligibility: The practice must have at least 150 attributed beneficiaries at the time of enrollment. If you are currently enrolled in PCMH, you should have received an application form with a list of current participating providers. Providers who are currently enrolled with your PCMH…
ADH Health Advisory
Rifampin/Penicillin-Resistant Strain of RB51 Brucella Contracted from Consumption of Raw Milk Summary: The Texas Department of State Health Services, with assistance from CDC, is investigating Brucella RB51 exposures and illnesses that may be connected to the purchase and consumption of raw (unpasteurized) milk from K-Bar Dairy in Paradise,…
Dr. Barbe: We need more time with patients, less at the keyboard
Family physician, and AMA President David Barbe, MD, MHA, recently told a Washington audience that government can a play a role in strengthening the “almost sacred” patient-physician relationship by reducing physicians’ administrative burdens, increasing cost transparency and facilitating electronic health record (EHR) interoperability and data liquidity. “Physicians have…
Help save lives: Co-prescribe naloxone to patients at risk of overdose
Naloxone saves lives The nation’s opioid epidemic claimed more than 33,000 lives in 2015, but that figure would have been even higher if it wasn’t for the life-saving opioid overdose antidote naloxone. For more than 40 years, naloxone has been used to reverse the effects of opioid overdose.…