Dr. Carl Wigren could stand in for just about any medical examiner as seen on TV. He’s witty, a fast talker who knows a lot about investigating deaths.

In fact, Wigren has been on TV, after testifying as an expert witness in high-profile criminal cases. He’s the guy you call when a death investigation furnishes more questions than answers. 

And, Wigren says, that happens a lot more than you think. 

“It’s the image that’s popularized on television crime shows,” Wigren told KNKX Public Radio, “that whoever is doing that autopsy really knows what they’re doing.” 

But reality is a lot more complicated.  

In Washington state and many states like it nationwide, the system of death investigation is a patchwork led by professionals with wide-ranging experience. 

Only six counties in the state’s most populous areas rely on the work of medical examiners, doctors who specialize in forensic pathology. That means they are highly trained — even more than the average primary care provider.

Medical examiners manage a staff of investigators, perform autopsies and interpret toxicology results, among other medical duties necessary to determine causes of sudden, unnatural or suspicious deaths. 

This story is the first in a three-part series examining the system of death investigation in Washington state. Read and listen to Part 2 and Part 3.

The remaining 33 counties, covering a population of about 2.5 million people, depend on elected coroners. In 17 counties, candidates only have to check two boxes to make it onto the ballot: they must be 18 years old and have a clean criminal record. 

And in the state’s 16 least populated counties, prosecuting attorneys investigate deaths when they aren’t trying cases. In other words, they split their time between courtrooms and death scenes. 

In all coroner offices, those elected officials are administrators who manage the death investigation process with little or no support staff, minus medical duties — because they often don’t have the training. 

Credit Adrian Florez / KNKX

/

KNKX

Kitsap County’s coroner, who was elected in 2018, is taking steps to transition the county from a coroner to a medical examiner system. Kittitas County transitioned to an elected coroner system in 2015, after its population surpassed 40,000.

While some coroners in Washington have prior experience related to death and medicine, such as mortuary work and nursing, others don’t have any relevant experience at all. Wigren says at one point, Eastern Washington’s roster of coroners included a former chimney sweep and a farmer. 

That mixed bag can result in shoddy work, he says, which has consequences.

Death determinations inform what we know about rates of suicide and murder. They affect decisions on public policy and life insurance claims. They help public health officials identify clusters of deadly disease, or trends in drug overdoses.

On a more personal level, though, this work provides closure to families who are left with questions about the sudden death of a loved one. It helps children learn about previously unknown medical conditions in their parents, potentially preventing similar deaths for other family members. It even helps prosecutors determine whether police killings are justified.  

And any mistakes or substandard work by untrained professionals has potential to disrupt that important public service. Missteps could interfere with homicide investigations or insurance payouts. Right now, it can affect data used to inform our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

More simply, though, this work seals the final chapter of someone’s life.

“These are the individuals who are responding to your family’s death,” Wigren said, often under traumatic circumstances. 

So, where you die determines a lot, including who responds and where they take your body for an autopsy. If you live in Pierce County and die unexpectedly more than 120 miles away in Wahkiakum County, your body and death certificate will be handled by an elected official you didn’t vote for.

Credit Parker Miles Blohm / KNKX

/

KNKX

Dr. Carl Wigren owns a Renton-based private practice, Wigren Forensic. He has consulted on cases here and across the country, including one case featured on an episode of NBC’s “Dateline” in 2016.

MOBILE MORGUES

Hayley Thompson, the coroner in Skagit County, doesn’t sugarcoat the problems facing her industry. She understands the weight of the job — a public service to the voters who elected her. 

“As much as we don’t like to talk about death, it allows us to understand more about what we can do about the people who are living,” Thompson said during an interview at her office in Mount Vernon. 

Thompson is among the more experienced coroners. She’s a trained death investigator with a background in forensic anthropology. She’s worked under medical examiners in Snohomish County and in Arizona’s largest county. 

In both offices, she assisted with autopsies. But she can’t perform those exams in the office she holds now.

Credit Parker Miles Blohm / KNKX

/

KNKX

Hayley Thompson sits at her desk inside the Skagit County Coroner’s Office in Mount Vernon.

So, Thompson and 32 of her fellow coroners scattered across Washington have to rely on outside help. A small cohort of traveling forensic pathologists — highly trained, contracted doctors — crisscross the state year-round, performing hundreds of autopsies that elected officials can’t do themselves. 

Wigren, who now owns a Renton-based private practice that consults on cases here and across the country, used to be one those travelers. 

“I would pack up the back of my Toyota 4-Runner with a bunch of cases,” Wigren said. “And then bring that to the funeral home, and create a morgue that I could literally work out of.”  

Right now, only a few of these pathologists are actively traveling in Washington. Each county has its go-to doctors, and many of them overlap. 

“Our pathologists that contract for us, they also work for two or three other coroner offices,” Thompson said. “So, when we call them to ask for their assistance on a case, sometimes they already have plans to help another office out with a case.”

Thompson’s not kidding when she says they get around. State records show the most active traveling pathologist in 2019 was Dr. Emmanuel Lacsina of Tacoma. He performed more than 600 autopsies over a two-year period, billing more than $520,000 in fees.  

Performance standards set by the National Association of Medical Examiners recommend forensic pathologists perform no more than 250 autopsies in a year, to minimize mistakes. Between the summers of 2017 and 2019, records show Lacsina’s average exceeded that standard. In that time, the work had him traveling between six counties spanning the length of the Olympic Peninsula: from Jefferson County to the north, down to Lewis County, and west to Grays Harbor County.

Credit Parker Miles Blohm / KNKX

/

KNKX

The most active traveling pathologist in 2019 was Dr. Emmanuel Lacsina of Tacoma, according to state records. He performed more than 600 autopsies between the summers of 2017 and 2019, billing more than $520,000 in fees. The work had him traveling between six counties spanning the length of the Olympic Peninsula: from Jefferson County to the north, down to Lewis County, and west to Grays Harbor County.

It’s not a glamorous gig. Burnout is common. In any given year, the most active travelers in Washington spend more time driving from county to county than they do performing autopsies.

And their workload is increasing. As of 2019, roughly a half dozen pathologists were doing all of the autopsies in a majority of Washington’s 39 counties. In the past year, more than half have retired or scaled way back, including Lacsina.

Dr. Eric Kiesel is among the few who remain active. In that two-year period ending in 2019, Kiesel performed more than 230 autopsies in 13 counties. The work had him traveling as far west as Clallam County and as far east as Adams County, roughly 400 miles apart. Now, Kiesel’s distance traveled and volume of autopsies is likely to increase, as he and few others pick up the slack left behind by their retired colleagues.  

Credit Parker Miles Blohm / KNKX

/

KNKX

Dr. Eric Kiesel is one of only a few remaining forensic pathologists actively traveling across Washington state. Between the summers of 2017 and 2019 — when the pool of travelers was double what it is today — Kiesel performed more than 230 autopsies in 13 counties. He billed more than $300,000.

Attracting people to replace outgoing travelers isn’t easy. The country’s pipeline of forensic pathologists is drying up. Only about 500 practice nationwide, and recruiting efforts are stagnant. 

Becoming a forensic pathologist requires additional education beyond what’s standard for other medical specialties, which often pay at least double the average medical examiner salary. Additionally, only some counties — like King and Pierce — hire forensic pathologists to work in well-equipped facilities with a full staff.  

Those who choose to take their work on the road, like the handful of doctors in Washington, can make a lot of money. But they must cover their own malpractice insurance and benefits. And they have to haul their own equipment to substandard or makeshift facilities, sometimes hours away from where they live. 

That’s a hard sell for newbies coming into the business, says Wigren, who stopped traveling for this kind of work about five years ago. 

“When I was really actively doing this, I would get a call from Benton County, which is the Tri-Cities,” Wigren said. “I would drive three and a half hours out, perform the autopsy, and then drive three and half hours back to Seattle.” 

And sometimes, after walking in the door from that seven-hour road trip, Wigren would get another call from Benton County — looking for him to perform yet another autopsy.

“So then I would hop back in the car and drive all the way back, do the single autopsy, and then drive back to Seattle,” he said. “It’s a challenging way to practice medicine.” 

A BREAKING POINT

So, elected officials and prosecutors are not cutting open dead bodies. But they are struggling to find people who can. 

Wigren says that means some coroners, who lack medical training, sometimes draw blood and attempt to interpret toxicology results using textbooks and supplies they buy online. 

“There are literally, in Washington state, people who are elected officials who are drawing blood on decedents,” Wigren said. “Some of them have some training or they’ve watched that happen. But I would say that most of them don’t have any understanding of the anatomy of the body and where certain organs are.”

Wigren has firsthand experience with coroners playing doctor. He cites one case in Central Washington in 2012, in which a coroner incorrectly interpreted toxicology results for the sudden death of an elderly woman. The coroner determined the woman died by accidental drug intoxication. Wigren, who worked with the family to review the case, determined the woman likely died from natural causes. 

There are literally, in Washington state, people who are elected officials who are drawing blood on decedents.

But examining a body is only half the job. If the death scene isn’t properly investigated, Wigren says, a traveling pathologist is at a disadvantage even before performing an autopsy. 

“I would argue that the scene investigation of where that person died is critical in understanding how the death came to be,” Wigren said. 

Often, he says, a traveling pathologist is forced to perform an autopsy in a vacuum of information, because a coroner didn’t take photographs or collect medical records. “So there is no context to understand the death scene,” Wigren said. In that 2012 case in Central Washington, the records Wigren used to reach his determination were never reviewed by the coroner he says got it wrong.   

Experts say these gaps are bad news for public health data, which begins with forensic work and passes through state, national and even international health organizations.

A key function of death investigation is learning from the dead to help the living. That’s especially important now — in the middle of a pandemic. These frontline workers provide some of the most timely data to help public health officials better understand and respond to COVID-19. Gaps in coroner training and experience limit what we can learn. 

“I’ve spent a lot of time, I’ve had my boots on the ground,” Wigren said. “I just don’t think the system that we have now works.”

With fewer boots on the ground, fanning across the state to assist coroners and prosecutors, the industry is at a breaking point. 

That worries coroners, too, like Thompson in Skagit County. Despite its flaws, Thompson believes the system works. It just needs reforming to make it work better, she says.   

“One of the hard parts of my job is trying to find people that are going to do a good job, care about what they do, and provide us the information that we need for the family, community and also to make the death certificate as accurate as possible.”

This story is the first in a three-part series examining the patchwork system of death investigation in Washington state. In Part 2, we’ll visit coroners in Skagit, Grays Harbor, Cowlitz and Wahkiakum counties, and get an up-close look at the challenges the elected officials there are facing. 

The post ‘A difficult solution to observe medication’: Loss of life investigation in Washington faces grim actuality appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

EAGAN, Minnesota (AP) — The NFL has expanded a program for minorities and women in sports medicine with the goal of…

EAGAN, Minn. (AP) — The NFL has expanded a minority and women’s sports medicine program with the goal of increasing diversity among athletic coaches and medical staff across the league in line with similar initiatives for coaches and the front office.

The league announced Monday at spring owner meetings in Minnesota an expansion of the pool to bring together diverse students from 19 medical schools with NFL clubs.

The NFL Diversity in Sports Medicine Pipeline initiative started last year with 14 medical students from historically black colleges and universities completing month-long clinical rotations with eight NFL teams in partnership with the NFL Physicians Society and the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society. Medical students interested in primary care sports medicine and orthopedic surgery were selected for the pilot program, and this year the number of participants more than doubled.

“We need more minorities, diverse people. We need more women to continue participating in programs, in colleges and in high school,” said Reggie Scott, vice president of sports medicine and performance for the Los Angeles Rams.

The league plans to expand the initiative in the future to include other player care disciplines such as physical therapy and behavioral health into the immersive and holistic program. The overarching goal is to reinforce the historical under-representation of women, as well as Black, Latino and other minorities in this area.

With the education process spanning more than a decade, from medical school to residency to fellowship, another goal of the NFL is to raise awareness of these professions higher up.

“The sooner we can inspire people, the sooner they can address the requirements, bring them into the programs and then allow them to start looking for mentors,” said Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer.

“So not only are they knowledgeable in the field, but they can also be confident applicants when it comes to enrolling and settling into areas like orthopedic surgery,” said Kelsey Henderson, a graduate of Meharry Medical College in Nashville. the 2022 contestant was with the Tennessee Titans.

Henderson had a picture of her with Sills and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in her yearbook, a potential inspiration for future contestants.

“When I applied to medical school, I really didn’t have any mentors, so I just had to figure it out for myself,” said Omolayo Dada, a 2022 program participant from Atlanta’s Morehouse School of Medicine who worked with the San Francisco 49ers.

“I felt like part of the family from the start,” Dada said.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

Copyright © 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.

The post NFL expands sports activities drugs range program to 19 faculties appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

In the immortal words of Michael Scott, “Good, good, good. Like the turntables.”

When squatters took over his mother’s home, Flash Shelton did what any good son would do: He immediately backed down.

“If they could take a house, I could take a house,” Shelton said.

YouTube: United Handyman Association

Shelton, a handyman from Nevada, said after his father’s death that his mother couldn’t live alone in the house. So they put the house up for rent.

A woman claiming to be a prison guard asked to rent the house, but she had neither money nor credit. Though Shelton denied her request, she still had all of her furniture and belongings delivered to her home.

“She said it was accidentally delivered and she wanted to get rid of it,” Shelton said.

But he soon found out that was a lie.

YouTube: United Handyman Association

Neighbors reported that the house was full of people and the lights stayed on at night. Shelton tried calling the police about the squatters, but they were basically no help.

“They basically said, ‘You know, I’m sorry, but we can’t go into the house and it looks like they live there. So you have to go to court,'” Shelton said.

But who wants to deal with the time and expense of litigation?

“Even though you’re in your house paying the mortgage, at some point squatters feel like they have more rights than you do, so they have no incentive to leave until a judge tells them to,” he said. “And that could take months, six months, it could take years. I don’t know. I didn’t want to take that risk.”

Shelton hatched a plan to remove the squatters.

And he documented the whole thing on his YouTube channel.

Shelton wrote a lease between him and his mother, which listed Shelton as the legal occupant of the house. He then packed the essentials (his guns and dog) and set off for California.

Once everyone was out of the house, he used his key to let himself in. He began setting up surveillance cameras when two women arrived.

“I’m really sorry about all this,” said one of the women. “It’s a nightmare and beyond.”

Shelton told the women that if they didn’t have everything out by midnight, he would have it shipped. It took the squatters until 3 p.m. to get out, but Shelton was kind enough to let it slide.

Eye to eye. Tooth for tooth. A squat for a squat.

“I think just the fact that I was there was enough,” he said. “It was really fun doing that. I won’t lie about it. I am happy that it was successful.”

The post Handyman Provides Squatters A Style Of Their Personal Medication – OutKick appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

AMA’s Moving Medicine video series amplifies physician voices and highlights developments and achievements throughout medicine.

Featured topic and speakers

Featured topic and speakers

In today’s episode of Moving Medicine, AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger discusses how telehealth is key to the future of patient care and the related advocacy and payment issues tied to its long-term use with Jack Resneck Jr., MD, the AMA’s president-elect and a professor and vice chair of dermatology at the UC San Francisco School of Medicine.

Speaker

• Jack Resneck Jr., MD, president-elect, AMA

Unger: Hello, this is the American Medical Association’s Moving Medicine video and podcast. Today, I’m joined by Dr. Jack Resneck Jr., the AMA’s president-elect and a professor and vice chair of dermatology at the UC San Francisco School of Medicine in San Francisco, and we’ll be discussing how telehealth is the key to the future of patient care and the related advocacy and payment issues tied to its long term use. I’m Todd Unger, AMA’s chief experience officer in Chicago.

Dr. Resneck, thank you so much for joining us today. You’ve been a long-time telehealth advocate and you referred to this past year as a shining success in terms of how quickly telemedicine adapted during the pandemic. Let’s start by talking a little bit about how telehealth has been a game-changer for medicine.

Dr. Resneck: Well Todd, thanks for having me and thanks for covering this really important topic. At the beginning of the pandemic, we really saw COVID just upend access for patients across the country as physician offices had to close or limit access for a little while. And so the AMA really jumped in to work with the federal government, primarily to get Medicare initially to start broadly covering telehealth visits and a lot of private insurers quickly followed suit, and the use of telemedicine really, really took off. And we saw a lot of our patients actually like it. It helped them maintain access during the pandemic. It helped with social distancing, so for some things they could stay home to see their doctor. And it helped with unexpected things like transportation time to get to physician offices or missing less work or having less issues with childcare. And it actually particularly helped in some areas where we saw underserved communities and rural areas and inner city areas, where they had long standing issues with a lack of medical services in areas that had contributed to health inequities, really improve access for those populations.

Unger: It’s kind of like work from home. Things I thought I wouldn’t like but it turns out telehealth is just a really important and convenient way to correspond with a physician. You’re running a dermatology practice. How has that been for you personally? How’d it work for your patients and for you?

Dr. Resneck: Well, telemedicine’s not brand new. A lot of specialties have been using it for years, even before the pandemic. As you mentioned, I’m a dermatologist, so my specialty was one that had been out front and had been doing this for a while. I’ve gotten to share some of those stories before Congress and other policy makers about how important it’s been for my patients and I particularly often think of some who live further away. I live in the San Francisco Bay area. A lot of my patients are from close by but I also take care of a number of people from rural areas who drive three, four, five hours to come in and see us.

Unger: Wow.

Dr. Resneck: And some of those folks have bad chronic disease problems in dermatology like psoriasis or lupus or others. And in some of those cases, an initial visit had been really important for those patients to maybe do a biopsy, make sure we had their diagnosis right, get them started on some medications, talk through all the pros and cons of different approaches but I felt pretty bad that some of those patients had to do repeated, long, several hour road trips just to come back and see me to get their progress checked on or make small modifications to their medications and some of those folks worried they’d get fired for missing work, sometimes they’d have to pile all their kids in the car if they had childcare issues. And I basically knew I could manage a lot of those issues by telemedicine but before the pandemic, neither Medicare nor a lot of private insurance companies would cover those visits remotely.

Now, a few of those patients who had commercial insurance would get a postcard saying that they could use some corporate internet based telehealth provider but when they tried to use them for a follow up for some complicated disease, they’d often get connected to a clinician from a totally different specialty who didn’t know their medical history or have access to their records or sometimes hadn’t even heard of their diseases, so they didn’t find that very helpful. With the pandemic, that all changed for us because we were able, as physicians across the country were, to actually do follow up and continue to take care of patients who we knew and knew us and we could use telehealth with their existing health care teams.

Unger: We’re going to dig in a little bit more into the payment related issues. Before we get started with that, I’m curious what do you see as kind of the go forward from here, hopefully in a post pandemic period, in terms of the balance between in-person and virtual services post pandemic?

Dr. Resneck: That’s a tough question and I don’t have a perfect crystal ball for this but I think over the last year and a half, once we saw this rapid expansion in coverage and patients started to use it more, physicians in every specialty and their patients really got to know, okay, in my specialty, this is the group of things that telehealth works really well for and maybe these are some other things where an in-person visit makes a lot more sense. So in my specialty, in dermatology for example, if I’ve got a patient who’s had melanoma or another skin cancer in the past and they need to come in for a full body check to see if they have any new skin cancers, that really needs to be an in-person visit. That’s pretty hard to do as they’re moving their phone around and trying to show everything on video. Or if they have some complicated new rash that’s likely going to need a biopsy, that’s going to need to be in-person. So I think that optimal mix is going to vary a lot by specialty and really by condition.

What I hope we see if this goes really well, is that we see telehealth deployed where it’s most needed. And so, as I said, that varies by condition and specialty but it most importantly, in some ways, varies by where do we have the most access problems that we need to dig in on and do better. So chronic disease is a big one. Patients with hypertension, pre-diabetes, substance use disorder, mental health issues, those are some of the places where real improvements in access can make a difference, as opposed to maybe some of the convenience care where telehealth early on got used for patients. Again, to go back to one of those corporate providers on the web that may have made it a little easier for them to get antibiotics they didn’t need when they had the sniffles, a regular cold or something but those chronic disease areas are probably the most important.

Unger: Now, when we got … At the beginning of the pandemic, like so many other things, the technology part is just one part of the issue. This is a whole system of things that had to come together to make that work and payment for telehealth services was a big potential roadblock then. Where do we stand currently on payment for telehealth services? And this concept of fair coverage, why is that so important?

Dr. Resneck: You make a good point. And the reason that we saw telehealth just take off early in the pandemic was really because the payment issue, at least temporarily, got fixed. What was standing in the way wasn’t licensure, it wasn’t technology, it was payment. And at the AMA, we believe very strongly that telemedicine services need to be covered and so we’ve supported parity laws in states around the country that require that coverage to be comparable to in-person services. We’ve got over 30 states now that have parity laws like that in place.

And we think the coverage really needs to, as I alluded to in one of your previous questions, shouldn’t just be with select online providers, that patients really need to have access to their existing health care teams for telemedicine or to get new consults from a new physician in a health system that already knows them and in practices that work together. That payment has to be fair. That payment has to be reasonable. We are pushing for payment at the same rate for services that are comparable to something done in the office. For a physician in practice, whether you’re in a small office or a mid-size group or a larger practice, all the sudden implementing telehealth as sort of a coordinated part of what you’re offering your patients doesn’t mean you can all the sudden stop paying rent on your building or doesn’t mean you can stop having your staff of nurses and front desk staff, so we think that payment needs to be fair and reasonable and with parity.

Unger: And in some cases, I mean, just through my own personal experience and talking to other physicians, that’s a lot of additive work, to be systematic about the approach to it and there’s no less time that I’m spending with my physician in those discussions.

Dr. Resneck: No. A lot of us have discovered that it actually takes longer in some cases to do a telehealth visit than an in-person visit and particularly as our patients have learned to use the technology better, as we’ve learned to use the technology better but I think that’s right.

Unger: Now, speaking of technology, not everybody has access to, of course, high speed connections and coverage for audio only visits was an important thing here. What’s your view on that?

Dr. Resneck: Yeah, I was actually surprised by how many of my patients … Now I live, as I said, in Northern California, a real technology hub, and yet I found I had plenty of patients who actually struggled with this. So you mentioned the audio, that really just means using the telephone to have a visit with your physician. And obviously telephones are not new and they’re not typically our first choice for having an encounter between a physician and a patient but they’re an important part of being able to deliver telehealth, especially to those patients who live in rural areas, marginalized patients who may not have the newest smartphone technology. A surprising number of patients live in areas with limited broadband access, so it’s really important for health equity that … Again, even though it’s not typically the first choice, that we have this backup option. I know a lot of clinicians in my practice have been taking care of patients who literally may be farm workers who call in from a field for their health services, so that audio only component’s really important.

Unger: Absolutely. Retaining telehealth services for Medicare beneficiaries has been a point of contention but one that the AMA obviously strongly believes should continue. What’s the issue here and why might this put seniors in jeopardy of losing access to services they received throughout the pandemic?

Dr. Resneck: Well, we have some pretty old Medicare rules on the books and they date from 1997. And that doesn’t sound like that long ago but from a health care technology standpoint, 1997 is actually a while back.

Unger: And that’s the year I started to work at AOL, so I’m going to tell you that was a long time ago.

Dr. Resneck: That pretty well illustrates it. So at the end of the pandemic or the federally declared public health emergency from the pandemic, those 1997 rules, from when you were at AOL, are automatically going to snap back into place. And essentially what that means for Medicare patients is that unless they live in a rural area, their telehealth coverage will just end. It also means that even for those Medicare patients who can use telehealth because they live in a rural area, that they won’t be able to use their own phones or the computers in their own homes anymore, that they actually have to go to a presenting site. So there are these very outdated Medicare rules that would snap back into place.

Unger: Well, obviously the AMA is paying close attention to this and acting. Can you talk about how the AMA is confronting the challenges here?

Dr. Resneck: So Congress has to act to prevent this from happening and to maintain this coverage so that it doesn’t get pulled away from our Medicare patients or else we go back to that world I described where only a very small select number can use those telehealth services and have it covered under Medicare. So we have supported permanently fixing those, they’re called originating site and geographic restrictions, on telehealth coverage for Medicare patients. There are a couple of bills out there that we’ve actively supported. One’s called the Telehealth Modernization Act of 2021. The other one’s called the Connect for Health Act. And we’re also, this is not just about Medicare because the same threat exists in the private insurance marketplace, so we’re working to ensure that commercial insurers also don’t retreat to no longer covering telehealth.

Unger: Now, Dr. Resneck, you’ve been very vocal on this issue. You’ve testified in front of Congress on this. What should and can other physicians do to help this effort? It’s so, so important to continue this right now.

Dr. Resneck: Well, I mentioned that Congress plays an important role here, so I think the first thing that all of us as physicians can do is to email or call our members of Congress or our senators to let them know how vital this coverage expansion has been for our patients, really share your stories, share your patients stories. If you feel comfortable doing so, even encouraging your patients who’ve benefited from telehealth to let their members of Congress know how important that’s been. And if you happen not to have time to write those emails or make those phone calls, I would ask that at least just join the AMA, join your state and specialty medical societies, showing leadership through that membership helps to support these efforts to help us all support our physicians and our patients.

Unger: It is so important to speak with a unified voice. It’s such an opportunity that arose from the pandemic and we can’t take it for granted that that will continue. So, thank you Dr. Resneck for being here today and sharing this really important perspective.

We’ll be back soon with another Moving Medicine video and podcast. Be sure to click subscribe on AMA’s YouTube channel, Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can find all of our videos and podcasts at ama-assn.org/podcasts. Thanks for joining us.

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this video are those of the participants and/or do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.

The post Jack Resneck Jr., MD, discusses the way forward for telehealth | AMA Transferring Drugs Video appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) – Across the Bay Area, people and businesses have stepped up to help each other with home orders, but a plumbing company that ships drugs from the pharmacy was likely a first.

Discount Plumbers has been in business for more than 30 years and has a fleet of nearly 50 trucks.

CONTINUE READING: “I am a gold collar;” The driverless Tesla rear-seat driver enjoys social prominence as he flaunts his wealth

“This is a crazy time for all of us!” says CEO Kevin Griffin.

While business is down 40 percent, Griffin says he’s still grateful and giving back.

“If you don’t want to go out, go to the pharmacy, which not a lot of people do right now. We’ll pick up your prescriptions and drop them on your door,” he says.

Griffin first made the unusual announcement on his client list and then expanded it to include everyone.

CONTINUE READING: Lawmakers urge California to close the online community college after a critical review

You will receive a call or email and if a truck is available it will go to the correct pharmacy.

Inside, the drug is delivered to the customer after an exchange of signatures and ID.

Alyssa Broduer stayed safe at home. She asked the sanitation service to collect and deliver her medicines.

“I did. I did it,” says Broduer. “It will be such a service that is really used. It is for people who could really use the help.”

“When we have a unit near you, we only assign it at the end of the day or in the middle of the day, depending on how busy we are,” explains Griffin.

MORE NEWS: Optimism Rises in San Francisco Bay Area As COVID Pandemic Woes And Worries Ease

The idea that despite the downturn in business, Griffin is helping those in need.

The post Good Samaritan Plumbing Firm Will Additionally Decide Up, Ship Medication Throughout Coronavirus Shelter In Place – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Wednesday night weather forecast with Darren PeckExpect mild conditions on Thursday. A warming trend will start this weekend. The highs reach the 70s on the bay and extend into the 80s inland on Saturday and Sunday. Darren Peck has the forecast. (04/14/21)

11 minutes ago

2 Hayward teachers bring science to life with student home kitsSharon Chin shares how two Hayward science teachers, Stuart Loebl and Nancy Wright found how to reach students during distance learning with pandemic (4-14-2021).

22 minutes ago

Officer who shot Daunte Wright arrested, charged with manslaughterThe officer who shot Daunte Wright while obstructionist traffic near Minneapolis, Minnesota was charged with manslaughter in his death. Chris Martinez reports. (04/14/21)

27 minutes ago

Suspects of recent attacks by Asian Americans in San Francisco appear in courtA crowd appeared outside a San Francisco courthouse on Wednesday as two suspects faced judges in separate attacks on Asian Americans. Wilson Walker reports. (04/14/21)

34 minutes ago

Stanford Medicine Launches COVID-19 Vaccine Study in Children Under 5 Years OldJuliette Goodrich Reports Start of Study at Stanford to Test Effects of COVID-19 Vaccines on Young Children (04/14/2021)

44 minutes ago

The influx of COVID vaccines from the Fed is giving Santa Clara County a surplusDevin Fehely reports that Santa Clara County is increasing the number of people vaccinated after receiving 300,000 doses from the federal government (4-14-2021).

1 hour ago

Health experts say more data is needed before a decision is made about the J&J vaccineNatalie Brand reports on a meeting of the CDC panel at which no conclusions were drawn regarding the extension of the break in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (4-14-2021).

1 hour ago

COVID or allergies? A UCSF doctor explains the differenceLen Kiese of CBSN Bay Area discusses allergy season with Dr. Ronald Labuguen from UCSF and explains how to distinguish symptoms from the coronavirus.

2 hours ago

Heart health amid the COVID-19 pandemicLen Kiese of CBSN Bay Area spoke to Dr. MarinHealth’s Ben Ancock on the increase in cardiovascular problems he sees from patients dropping out of care due to COVID-19.

2 hours ago

CDC holds emergency meetings on Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccineInvestigators are still trying to determine if Johnson & Johnson’s COVID vaccine is linked to a handful of severe blood clotting cases. Natalie Brand reports. (04/14/21)

6 hours ago

Santa Clara County expands immunization eligibility to those 16 years of age and olderMore people are now eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, and the expansion is coming two days ahead of schedule in Santa Clara County. Emily Turner reports. (04/14/21)

6 hours ago

Wednesday afternoon forecast with Mary Lee(04/14/21)

6 hours ago

COVID Reopening: San Francisco will resume indoor live events and performances on April 15thOfficials in San Francisco announced Wednesday that the city will allow live audiences and other gatherings to resume from Thursday, April 15, with some capacity constraints and minutes. Anne Makovec reports. (04/14/21)

6 hours ago

Raw Video: Body found at the scene of the fire in the San Jose restaurantA body was found on Wednesday morning at the site of a fire in a Vietnamese restaurant in San Jose. (04/14/21)

11 hours ago

San Francisco restaurant hit by non-paying patrons who “dine and pounce”A restaurant in San Francisco is facing another blow to the pandemic. Betty Yu reports that they were met both in person and virtually by unpaid “Dine and Dashers”.

19 hours ago

COVID: Bay Area experts weigh in after thousands of Johnson & Johnson cans are withdrawnThousands of doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are being withdrawn because of concerns about a potentially rare but serious side effect. Andrea Nakano spoke to local experts about the vaccine.

19 hours ago

Officer and chief of police resign over fatal shooting of Daunte Wright in fallout; George Floyd Family offers supportDaunte Wright’s family is supported by relatives of Geoge Floyd after Wright was shot dead by police during a traffic obstruction in Minnesota. Nancy Chen reports. (04/13/21)

23 hours ago

Study: Sediments and tidal swamps are key to protecting the bay from rising sea levelsScientists warn that sea level rise is a problem that cannot be ignored. However, a new study suggests that the secret to protecting the Bay Area may lie in something that is currently being thrown away. John Ramos reports. (04/13/21)

23 hours ago

Sobering Center Opens in San Francisco to Help People Fight Drug AddictionSan Francisco is taking a new approach to helping people fight drug addiction. Andria Borba reports on the opening of a new Sobering Center on Howard Street.

1 day ago

Bay Area Homelessness Action Plan Announced; Aims to accommodate 75% of the homeless by 2024Local and state leaders, housing professionals, corporations, and social justice attorneys from all nine Bay Area counties have come together to create a regional action plan that will take in 75 percent of the homeless in the area by 2024. Len Ramirez reports. (04/13/21)

1 day ago

Prime Suspect Paul Flores 1996 Arrested Case of Missing Cal Poly Student Kristin SmartThere was a major hiatus in a California cold case. The main suspect Paul Flores was arrested in 1996 when 19-year-old Kristin Smart disappeared. Michele Gile has more details.

1 day ago

COVID Vaccines: Break in Johnson & Johnson footage of Bay Area health officialsBay Area public health officials have postponed doses of Johnson & Johnson’s one-time COVID-19 vaccine due to concerns from the Centers for Disease Control for rare blood clots. Devin Fehely reports. (04/13/21)

1 day ago

The post Stanford Drugs Launching COVID-19 Vaccine Research On Kids 5 Years Previous And Underneath – CBS San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.