News

Ophthalmic practice administrators know that keeping physicians happy is crucial to the practice's overall success. And the best way to do that is by making sure their incomes are continually growing.

Depending on your location, your specialty, and the size of your practice, insurers may actually want to keep you happy, especially if you threaten to walk away from a bad deal. If nothing else, negotiations may reveal that lowball reimbursement for a particular code is nothing more than an inadvertent mistake that most insurers are willing to correct.

Physician groups are adopting tougher collection tactics, largely in response to tough times. What compounds their problem of skimpy third-party reimbursements and rising overhead is having to depend on patients for a bigger portion of their revenue stream-a result of the rising number of uninsured and the growth of high-deductible health plans.

Losing even one patient to another local practice is one too many. To achieve and maintain an edge in the LASIK market, you've got to stay on top of your competitors with research and analysis, and regularly evaluate where you fit in terms of image and consumer perception.

Organized medicine's "victory" resulted in postponing harsh reductions in payments to physicians for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Safety and efficacy outcomes from a five-year study indicate that intravitreal triamcinolone can be an appropriate treatment in selected patients with advanced diabetic macular edema. Beneficial effects persisted throughout the study period, and no unexpected adverse events were seen.

In an evaluation of the anatomic changes of CNV lesions, patients treated with ranibizumab (Lucentis, Genentech) in the PIER study had smaller changes than patients who had received sham injections.

An analysis of data from a study of eye disease in Latinos provides additional evidence that interleukin-8 (IL-8) may play a role in the development or progression of age-related macular degeneration.

Results from the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) showed that participants assigned to take zinc dietary supplements had lower mortality than participants not assigned to zinc supplements. The long-term study also indicated that poorer survival was associated with AMD.

A telemedicine program, in which images allow patients to virtually visit with doctors, can be a valuable tool in the early detection, management, and treatment of diabetic retinopathy.

In some circumstances, it may be unnecessary to obtain images simultaneously with a confocal laser scanning system and optic disc photography, suggests a new study.

Use of spectral-domain optical coherence tomography with automated image processing seems to provide more objective and potentially more reproducible assessments of the optic nerve head when compared with ophthalmologists' assessments of conventional fundus photos.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) is pleased to announce Harvey V. Fineberg, MD, PhD, president of the Institute of Medicine, as this year's keynote speaker.

ISTA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has entered into an agreement with Deerfield Management, Sprout, and Sanderling Ventures, three of its long-term shareholders, to provide it with up to $65 million in financing through a flexible credit facility.

Topical, periocular, and/or systemic corticosteroids typically are used to treat corneal endothelial graft rejection. When those modalities fail, experience in a series of five eyes suggests intracameral triamcinolone acetonide may be worth considering.

Using standardized terminology, such as that in the Birmingham Eye Trauma Terminology system, to describe trauma to the globe eliminates misrepresentation of the injury.

The high-tech devices available today are changing the way ophthalmology is practiced. According to the surgeon, the new technology found in state-of-the-art optical coherence tomography goes much further than assisting ophthalmologists in the diagnostics of anterior eye and retinal disorders.

A new ketotifen fumarate ophthalmic solution (Refresh Eye Itch Relief, Allergan) offers patients another option for the treatment of episodic ocular itching as well as seasonal and chronic allergic conjunctivitis.

Times have changed, and, with them, practices in antibacterial therapy. Questions remain, however. Has progress been made over the decades, and what does the future hold?

Physicians seem to have grasped the power of the Internet to help them secure continuing medical education credits in a way that precisely meets their professional interests and time constraints.

Non-surgical blepharoplasty can provide surgeons with a minimally invasive approach to eyelid procedures.

Another piece of the puzzle of the mechanism involved in the elevation of IOP has been identified with the discovery of the role of the gene sFRP-1 in the Wnt signaling pathway.

Monotherapy is usually the first step in glaucoma therapy, but when IOP is not sufficiently lowered with a single agent, a fixed combination can be considered. The advantages, limitations, and features of fixed combinations of IOP-lowering agents available worldwide are reviewed.

Othera Pharmaceuticals Inc. has begun dosing in a phase I/II multicenter, investigator-masked clinical trial of the safety and efficacy of a topical drug (OT-730) in reducing IOP in subjects with ocular hypertension or open-angle glaucoma.

Acucela Inc. and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. have entered into agreements to co-develop Otsuka's proprietary compound for the treatment of dry eye (Rebamipide), which is in phase III clinical trials in the United States, as well as Acucela's lead compound (ACU-4429), which is in phase I clinical trials for non-exudative (dry) age-related macular degeneration in the United States.

The inaugural meeting of the International Society of Bilateral Cataract Surgeons (ISBCS) was held Sept. 1, during the recent annual meeting of the European Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons (ESCRS).

Ophthalmic resident and fellowship education programs in the United States are responding to the changing requirements of working in a modern health-care delivery system and new incentives have been created for transforming the "apprenticeship model" to a "competency-based" model of education.

A combination of blue light exposure and low blood levels of anti-oxidants may be associated with an increased risk of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), as well as early AMD, according to research published in the October issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has become a manageable chronic disease, but that is true only in rich countries that have a relatively small number of HIV cases. With the evolution of treatment, patients can expect a natural life expectancy with the available therapies. These treatments are needed globally in third-world countries where most of the cases are.

Prevent Blindness America (PBA) announced the addition of three new members to its national board of directors.