Under the MMA, state Medicaid programs are likely to lose their clinical responsibility for the prescription management of their dually eligible members. Some states are pushing to have continued access to their clinical information through a relationship with the Medicare PDPs. This information is required to determine adherence as well as appropriate medication usage. The [...]
Continue reading " A Real Y2K for Medicaid P&T Committees: SUPERVISION OF MEDICARE DRUG PLANS "
For several reasons, access to medications for dual eligibles will be more limited under the new plan than under their state’s Medicaid program. For instance, under federal law, states that provide prescription coverage are required to cover “most” FDA-approved drugs for all manufacturers that have entered into an agreement with the Secretary of the Department [...]
Continue reading " A Real Y2K for Medicaid P&T Committees: ACCESS TO MEDICATIONS "
Medicaid now consumes more resources than any other state program; this is a significant point, because education expenditures have been surpassed for the first time in many states. This is occurring at the same time that the U.S. Congress has established the Medicaid Commission to examine and recommend policy changes to reduce the federal government’s [...]
Continue reading " A Real Y2K for Medicaid P&T Committees: FUTURE DIRECTION OF MEDICAID PROGRAMS "
Many of us in the health care field still remember midnight on December 31, 1999, because we were up well past our bedtimes waiting for massive computer failures and utter chaos to befall our health systems—an event that, thankfully, never occurred. Unfortunately, those of us who are involved with Medicaid P&T committees will not experience [...]
Managing adolescent anxiety
The essential first step is to gain teenagers’ cooperation through developing rapport. This is difficult at first, as anxious teenagers are practised at resistance, but the fact that you have taken time to listen through the assessment has a remarkable effect. Before engaging in more specific treatments (Table 2), such factors as sleep [...]
Continue reading " Managing the many faces of adolescent anxiety. Part 2 "
Migraine, an underrecognized and undertreated neurologic disorder, has a prevalence of 15% to 17% in women, 5% in men, 5% in children, and 10% in adolescents. It is characterized by episodic, unilateral, pulsating or throbbing headaches that are often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, photophobia, and phonophobia (also olfactophobia), and is aggravated by physical activity (Table [...]
Continue reading " Delivery systems for acute migraine medications "
