‘Physician Spending Is Not the Problem in Healthcare’: What We Heard This Week

“It’s very, very clear that physician spending is not the problem in healthcare.” — Jen Brull, MD, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, commenting on proposed payment cuts under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule.

“The Pap smear is actually a really bad test.” — Shae Connor, MD, of UT Erlanger Women’s Oncology in Chattanooga, Tennessee, reacting after a self-collection HPV test was approved for use in healthcare settings.

“There is a clear association between the use of GLPs and increased risks of food retention during upper endoscopy.” — Ruchi Mathur, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in West Hollywood, California, on how GLP-1 receptor agonists can affect gastric procedures.

“The thing that can be done is to go for single embryo transfer, which may reduce the risk.” — Ulla-Britt Wennerholm, MD, PhD, of University of Gothenburg in Sweden, on the implication of the finding of excess congenital heart defects in kids born via assisted reproductive technology.

“We know that most people seek primary care prior to suicide attempts.” — Julie Angerhofer, PhD, MPH, of Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, discussing a screening program in primary care practices that was linked with fewer attempted suicides.

“It’s both the frequency and the intensity of head impacts that are the drivers of the disease.” — Michael Alosco, PhD, of the Boston University CTE Center, on the dose-response relationship between chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) neuropathology and the number of years and the level of football played.

“We needed a way to cover the injectable HIV prevention drugs … What we didn’t know was they would move the oral PrEP to Part B at the same time.” — Carl Schmid, of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., on Medicare changes for long-acting and oral PrEP.