The Physician Fee Schedule Was Not Built for High-Cost Supplies and Equipment.

As reimbursement from the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) continues to decline, cuts to practice expense relative value units disproportionately impact office-based interventionalists and private practices that rely on high-cost equipment. For 195 codes, specialties such as radiation oncology, vascular surgery, and interventional radiology are paid at rates less than their direct costs calculated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services itself. While reimbursement in the office-based setting continues to decline, high-cost hospital settings receive more payment for the same services.

Impact of intensive care unit supportive care on the physiology of Ebola virus disease in a universally lethal non-human primate model.

Background: There are currently limited data for the use of specific antiviral therapies for the treatment of Ebola virus disease (EVD). While there is anecdotal evidence that supportive care may be effective, there is a paucity of direct experimental data to demonstrate a role for supportive care in EVD. We studied the impact of ICU-level supportive care interventions including fluid resuscitation, vasoactive medications, blood transfusion, hydrocortisone, and ventilator support on the pathophysiology of EVD in rhesus macaques infected with a universally lethal dose of Ebola virus strain Makona C07.

Annexin A5 binds to lipopolysaccharide and reduces its endotoxin activity.

Unlabelled: Annexin A5 (AnxA5) has a high affinity for phosphatidylserine. The protein is widely used to detect apoptotic cells because phosphatidylserine, a phospholipid that is normally present in the inner leaflets of cytoplasmic membranes, becomes translocated to the outer leaflets during programmed cell death. Here we report the novel observation that AnxA5 binds to Gram-negative bacteria via the lipid A domain of lipopolysaccharide (LPS).