News

San Francisco-Medem, the secure patient/physician e-health network foundedby the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the nation's leading medicalspecialty societies, has surpassed its growth projections for this year.As of July, more than 30,000 physicians have signed up to join the Medemnetwork.

San Francisco-Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of newblindness in adults age 20 to 74. In an attempt to halt this tragedy, theAmerican Academy of Ophthalmology has released a new Diabetes and Eye Diseaseslide-script program, containing 57 slides and a corresponding script thatincludes handouts. Ophthalmologists can use the script to educate medicalprofessionals who care for patients with diabetes.

Today, when patients come for a visit, ophthalmologists have the discretionof using either the eye codes (92002 to 92014) or the E/M codes in billing.But, when is it truly appropriate to use a certain set of codes for a givenvisit? Unfortunately, there's no one standard. It all depends on the rulesset by the carriers in your state.

In my experience, the failure rate (turnover in the first 2 years) ofnew physician recruits to practices is high. The reason: employers do notselect from a broad enough universe. Gathering a large crop of candidatestogether implies a major safari that lots of practices just don't have theenergy or budget to mount, so they take the first or second doctor who happensto come along. Small wonder it doesn't work out.

Philadelphia-Thalidomide is dead, at least when it comes to itscurative properties for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This isthe conclusion of the Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Thalidomide Study(AMDATS).

San Francisco-The Eye Bank Association of America (EBAA) thisyear celebrated 40 years of service, supplying safe corneal tissue for patientsin need of transplants, according to a press release from the American Academyof Ophthalmology.

Augusta, GA-Despite negative results in an early trial, effortsare continuing to determine whether external-beam irradiation can slow visionloss caused by subfoveal choroidal neovascularization (CNV) in age-relatedmacular degeneration (AMD), said Dennis M. Marcus, MD.

Memphis-Dual therapy with brimonidine (Alphagan, Allergan) andlatanoprost (Xalatan, Pharmacia & Upjohn) was more effective than timolol/dorzolamide(Cosopt, Merck) in reducing IOP in a study of 21 patients being treatedfor glaucoma. The dual therapy also produced greater clinical success asmeasured subjectively by clinicians, according to Peter A. Netland, MD,PhD.