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May 19, 2016 |
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The New York Times
The doctors wanted to talk about illness, but the patients – often miners, waitresses, tree cutters and others whose jobs were punishingly physical – wanted to talk only about how much they hurt. They kept pleading for opioids like Vicodin and Percocet, the potent drugs that can help chronic pain, but have fueled an epidemic of addiction and deadly overdoses.
"We needed to talk about congestive heart failure or diabetes or out-of-control hypertension," said Dr. Sarah Chouinard, the chief medical officer at Community Care of West Virginia, which runs primary care clinics across a big rural chunk of this state. "But we struggled over the course of a visit to get patients to focus on any of those."
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WebPT
Healthcare reform is affecting more than just healthcare practitioners; it's also impacting patients. That's because reform efforts aren't limited to provider-centric payment initiatives (namely, the push to adopt pay-for-performance models). Healthcare reform also has led to new trends in insurance plans. The number of patients with high-deductible health plans is rising steadily, which means patients are becoming increasingly responsible for the costs of their own care. The result: today's patients are more invested – and actively involved – in their care decisions than ever before. But, they're also holding more of the purse strings, which means it's imperative that clinicians up their patient collections game.
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Physical Therapy Products
How well does a GPS running watch stack up against a motion capture system in helping to identify and correct gait issues among runners? Quite well, suggests a recent study that put both to the test.
Conducted by Doug Adams, PT, DPT, SCS, OCS, CSCS, from ATI Physical Therapy, the study looked at three components of a runner's gait—cadence, vertical oscillation, and ground contact time of the runner's foot – using both a GPS running watch and a motion capture system.
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PT in Motion
Authors of a new study say that public health efforts to reduce smoking, alcohol use, obesity, physical inactivity, and irregular sleep may also pay off in reducing the prevalence of low back pain.
In an article e-published ahead of print in Spine, researchers shared findings from what they believe is the first study to document the association between behavior-related factors and LBP in US adults. Authors gathered data from a series of cross-sectional surveys pulled from the National Health Interview Survey, a population that featured adults between the ages of 18 and 85, with a population size totaling 122,337.
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The Wall Street Journal
The running boom is over. Blame millennials.
After two decades of furious growth in footrace participants, the number of finishers dropped 9 percent in 2015, according to industry-funded research group Running USA. Coming off a small decline in 2014, the 2015 slide points to a sustained cooling off of footrace fever, something that was unimaginable only two years ago, when Running USA reported that the number of 2013 finishers had reached an all-time peak of 19 million. Back then, observers predicted an imminent crossing of the 20 million threshold. Instead, the 2015 number dropped to 17 million.
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mHealth Intellligence
Physical and cognitive therapy programs are using telehealth to connect with patients at home – and demonstrating positive results. Telehealth-based therapy programs for stroke survivors have helped increase cognitive and language skills and enabled patients to receive therapy five times more often, according to one company.
The survey of more than 20 million therapy sessions by Boston-based Constant Therapy is in line with reports from mHealth advocates who say home-based physical and cognitive therapy programs can improve outcomes and frequency.
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By Heidi Dawson
I wrote a piece in 2013 on the craze that is Kinesio taping. It examined the role of Kinesio tape in sports injury management, the claims regarding its benefits, and research supporting and questioning its use. The overall picture was that while Kinesio tape had potential and obviously fans (both athletes and therapists), there was no real evidence to support its use. Two and a half years later, I've gone back to take a second look, peruse new research and see where the evidence lies.
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WebPT
One of the primary reasons medical providers depend on certified coders is that coders know how to maximize practice revenues. That's because certified coders understand how and when to use modifiers – and there are a lot – to indicate anything from laterality, to separate and distinct procedures. With the latter, we are of course referring to the very tricky – and very challenging – modifier 59. Physical therapists aren't certified coders, and yet, when it comes to modifier 59, they essentially need to be. That's because few modifiers cause as much confusion for PTs or wreak as much havoc on their payments than this mysterious modifier. In this post, we will demystify modifier 59 by detailing how and when physical therapists should use it.
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