Surgeon Pauline Chen MD wrote a moving piece in the New York Times recently on new opportunities and the possibilities of practicing medicine in the age of Twitter and Facebook. She briefly chronicles a patient ("Eddie") with Buerger's disease, which causes "clotting and inflammation of blood vessels in the hands and feet," she writes. The only way to slow the disease down is for the patient to stop smoking, but that's only if the patient is a smoker.

The average sales price (ASP) list for the third quarter of 2009 will largely remain stable. CMS reports prices will increase by less than 1% on average. Subscribers can download the complete list and our analysis showing price changes from the second quarter by going to our online library (click here) and selecting the "ASP chart 3Q" file.

President Barack Obama will speak at the AMA's 158th annual meeting in Chicago Monday. Medicare and physician payments will be part of the overall health care reform discussion. For an idea of what the president will say, here are excerpts from a Medicare fact sheet from the White House. In brief, pay rates in Medicare need to be fixed and the trust fund needs reworking.

We'd welcome your thoughts on President Barack Obama's speech to the AMA on Monday. Here are some excerpts of the speech:

As you read in this week's Part B News, the swine flu is not going away. The World Health Organization (WHO) says there's a "phase 6"  global pandemic, meaning "the same virus has caused sustained community level outbreaks in at least one other country in another WHO region." Here are the latest U.S. statistics on the H1N1 influenza virus outbreak from the CDC. The number of reported cases has reached more than 17,800, and has caused 45 deaths. Subscribers can read more of our coverage, which includes Medicare billing advice, here and here.