TGIF

Following up on Tuesday's tidbit about telemedicine, the FEHBlog ran across this American Bar Association article describing the legal complications involved with telemedicine. Logically you would think that practicing medicine across state lines would not be a big deal (pneumonia is pneumonia, after all), but laws do interfere with telemedicine.  The article notes that beginning this year, CMS is allowing Medicare to pay for annual wellness visits, psychoanalysis, family psychotherapy, and prolonged evaluation and management services provided via telemedicine. The CMS policy coupled with the Supreme Court decision discussed in Tuesday's post may break down some barriers.

Speaking of headaches, ihealthbeat reports on industry group reaction to the Health IT czar's roadmap to electronic medical record interoperability.  Why EMR interoperability was not built into the meaningful use standards to begin with is a topic for public administration schools to study over the next century. It will be a while before this mess is straightened out.

On the bright side, Reuters reports on a study concluding the cancer diagnosis rate are dropping for adult men and are steady for adult women and that cancer mortality rates are dropping for all demographic groups, including children.