Integrating Tobacco Use Treatment Into Practice: Billing and Documentation.

Balancing population-based efforts to modify the social and environmental factors that promote tobacco dependence with efforts to improve the delivery of case-based treatments is necessary for realizing maximum reductions in the cost and consequences of the disease. Public health antismoking campaigns following the 1964 Surgeon General's report on the health risks of smoking have changed social norms, prevented initiation among youth, and promoted abstinence among the addicted. However, the rate of progress enjoyed to date is unlikely to continue into the coming decades, given that current annual unassisted cessation rates among prevalent smokers remains fairly low.

The changing landscape of adult home noninvasive ventilation technology, use, and reimbursement in the United States.

There has been an exponential increase in the use of home noninvasive ventilation (NIV). Despite growing use, there is a paucity of evidence-based guidelines and practice standards in the United States to assist clinicians in the initiation and ongoing management of home NIV. Consequently, home NIV practices are being influenced by complicated local reimbursement policies and coding.

Spirometry: don't blow it!

Spirometry is a useful test of pulmonary function and can be safely performed in a variety of clinical situations. Although the technique for performing the maneuver is straightforward, there are many sources of variability in results. Specific criteria must be met in order for the test to be considered valid.

Comparison of linear and non-linear equations for univariate calibration.

Univariate data accumulated for the purpose of calibration of chromatographic and spectroscopic methods often exhibit slight but definite curvature. In this paper the performance of a non-linear calibration equation with the capacity to account empirically for the curvature, y = a + bx(m), (m not equal to 1) is compared with the commonly used linear equation, y = a + bx, as well as the quadratic equation, y = a + bx + cx2. All equations were applied to high quality HPLC calibration data using unweighted least squares.