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JANUARY 5, 2017

Why health insurers worry about Trump's HHS Pick, [Rep. Tom Price, M.D.] (features MAG president)

Forbes
Now that Dr. Tom Price, a Republican congressman, has been picked by Donald Trump to be the next U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, insurers fear an assault on narrow networks, reimbursement tied to outcomes and related value-based care models. | READ MORE

Job No. 1 for a new Congress? Undoing Obama’s health law
NY Times
Congress often waits for a new president to take office before it gets down to business. This year, Republicans will drop that custom in their dash to scrap the Affordable Care Act.| READ MORE

If Republicans repeal health law, how will they pay for replacement?
Kaiser Health News
Leading Republicans have vowed that even if they repeal most of the Affordable Care Act early in 2017, a replacement will not hurt those currently receiving benefits. | READ MORE

9 [Hall County] lives saved by new opioid overdose drug (features MAG Foundation ‘Think About It’ campaign)
Gainesville Times
At least nine lives in Hall County have been saved from the potentially terminal consequence of an opioid overdose thanks to efforts to equip medical first responders with the drug naloxone.| READ MORE

Safety penalties hit some Georgia hospitals
Georgia Health News
Nearly one in four Georgia hospitals are being penalized by the federal government for high rates of patient injuries.| READ MORE

Georgia GOP leaders hope to avoid snags over hospital tax
Gainesville Times
Georgia’s governor and legislative leaders hope to quickly extend an annual tax on hospitals that covers a large share of state health care expenses when lawmakers return to the Capitol in January.| READ MORE

Medical marijuana supporters see opening, obstacles to [Georgia] expansion
AJC
Seven states passed marijuana initiatives on Nov. 8, which ordinarily would have injected new life into the push to expand Georgia’s tiny medical cannabis program.| READ MORE

Medicare outpatients risk higher bills for some procedures
Associated Press
You pay less for outpatient treatment than for a hospital admission, right? Not necessarily in the topsy-turvy world of Medicare billing, according to a government report. | READ MORE

New Medicare rules should help ‘high need’ patients get better treatment
Kaiser Health News
Doctors have complained for years that they’re not paid adequately for time-consuming work associated with managing care for seriously ill older patients: consulting with other specialists, talking to families and caregivers, interacting with pharmacists and more.| READ MORE

Researchers identify proteins in Zika linked to birth defects
The Virgin Islands Daily News
Scientists have identified seven proteins within the deadly Zika virus that could be to blame for the birth defects linked to the pathogen. | READ MORE

Does a doctor's gender affect your chance of survival?
Associated Press
What if your doctor's gender could influence your chance of surviving a visit to the hospital? A big study of older patients hospitalized for common illnesses raises that provocative possibility — and also lots of questions. Patients who got most of their care from women doctors were more likely to leave the hospital alive than those treated by men. | READ MORE

Drugmakers push profitable, but unproven, opioid solution
Associated Press
Pilloried for their role in the epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse, drugmakers are aggressively pushing their remedy to the problem: a new generation of harder-to-manipulate opioids that have racked up billions in sales, even though there's little proof they reduce rates of overdoses or deaths. | READ MORE

Advertise with MAG: Please contact Tom Kornegay at 678.303.9260 or tkornegay@mag.org if you are interested in running an ad in the Georgia Pulse, which is a weekly compilation of media reports that are related to health care and the medical profession. It is sent to more than 6,000 physicians in Georgia.

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