Physicians from the town profiled in a recent issue of The New Yorker are visiting our nation's capital June 22 to discuss their struggles in providing quality health care. A news conference with the physicians from southern towns located near the Mexican border is being organized by the AMA.

We're past mid-June and there's still no word on who will be President Barack Obama's CMS administrator. A look back at the previous administrations shows Obama is late when compared to his last two predecessors:

• President Clinton's appointee Bruce Vladeck took office in May 1993
• President Bush's appointee Thomas Scully took office in May 2001

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.