Journal of general internal medicine
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Synchronous virtual visits aid in longitudinal primary care and fulfill unmet needs for patients and clinicians. Virtual visits are widely accepted for specialty consultation and follow-up; however, novel systems-based programs and processes may support earlier engagement. ⋯ Participants reported satisfaction and acceptability of team-based virtual visits, noting high satisfaction with information exchange and actionability of notes. Participants reported ongoing opportunities to enhance medication reconciliation. Virtual visits continue to evolve and may serve varying roles in primary care.
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Drug prices affect government budgets directly through spending on public programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and indirectly via private coverage for public employees and tax subsidies for private insurance. Yet, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that the Senate could not use streamlined Budget Reconciliation to extend the Inflation Reduction Act's controls on insulin co-payment or drug prices to private insurers on the grounds that their expenditures do not affect the federal budget. ⋯ Governments directly or indirectly fund most drug purchases, including substantial expenditures that flow through private insurers. Hence, prices paid by private insurers impact government budgets, supporting the view that government should be allowed to regulate drug prices.
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Patients with bacteremia often have elevated white blood cell (WBC) and neutrophil counts, yet these alone are poor predictors of bacteremia. Data on the continuous relationship between WBC response and bacteremia are lacking. ⋯ ILRs offered a more discriminating approach to estimating the probability of bacteremia than a single threshold. Physicians assessing risk of bacteremia should pay attention to the magnitude of abnormality because very high and very low values have much stronger predictive power than dichotomized results.