Week In Review

A special collection of articles celebrating the 50th anniversary of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) is now available from the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. The NIA has grown to become the world's largest and most influential funder of aging research since its establishment in1974. The articles in this collection are authored by recipients and leaders of major NIA initiatives and delve into the successes of these groundbreaking programs. They also provide valuable insights into the challenges that aging science and NIA may encounter in the next 50 years. 

Join us in celebrating this important milestone by exploring the achievements and future prospects outlined in this exclusive collection. Part of the collection is a special article that describes NIA’s contributions to aging research over the years, historical highlights, and what is on the horizon for the Institute. Read it here. And don’t miss Dr. Richard J. Hodes, MD, the Director of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1993, deliver the Public Policy lecture at the 2024 AGS Virtual Annual Scientific Meeting next week.

Ready for #AGS24? Here's are a few fast facts to help you get the most out of the meeting:

• Make sure to register for #AGS24 if you haven't already. 
• If you have already registered, you will receive an email with instructions on how to log in to the Virtual Platform on Monday, May 6. 
• Access all research abstracts here. 
• Ready to network? Make sure you visit these Special Interest Group (SIG) meetings. 

Your program evaluations and CME/CE can be completed from home through August 31, 2024 except for Pharmacy CE credit. Pharmacy CE needs to be submitted by June 9, 2024.

A national survey of physician practices led by the American Medical Association (AMA) is underway and AGS urges your cooperation with this effort. The objective of The Physician Practice Information (PPI) Survey is to gather accurate data on practice costs and the hours of patient care that physicians provide to support fair and accurate physician payment. The PPI Survey will be fielded through June 2024 by Mathematica. AGS joined more than 170 national state and specialty medical associations and other health care organizations in endorsing the PPI Survey. Participation in the survey is voluntary but important. The information you share will be kept private, reported in aggregate, and used only for the purpose of informing the national estimates of practice expense per patient care hour.

A financial expert in each sampled physician practice or health system was contacted via email and mail and will receive weekly reminders from PPISurvey@mathematica-mpr.com with the email subject line of “Reminder: The AMA needs your input to support fair and accurate physician payment.” Additionally, Mathematica, Medscape and the AMA are reaching out to physicians in each sampled practice to alert them to their practice’s involvement and to solicit information on direct patient care hours. If you have any questions or if you would like to speak to someone about this survey, please contact Mathematica at PPISURVEY@MATHEMATICA-MPR.COM, or via phone at 1-833-770-1032. 

Last week, AGS submitted a statement for the record to the Senate Committee on Finance Hearing, “Bolstering Chronic Care through Medicare Physician Payment.” In our comments, we noted that a high-quality, cost-effective healthcare system results from care that is person-centered, team-based, and grounded in strong primary care and that the payment system must reflect, reinforce, and incentivize this type of care. We urged the Committee to take steps to foster performance-based care that values and supports geriatrics care teams for complex and high-cost patients, such as Comprehensive Primary Care Plus. We also asked the Committee to reinstate the primary care bonus payment, expand telehealth, and adopt a more holistic approach to quality measurement in older adults with multiple chronic conditions. 

This week, AGS provided feedback to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in response to its draft guidance for the Collection of Race and Ethnicity Data in Clinical Trials and Clinical Studies for FDA-Regulated Medical Products. As part of our letter, we recommended that FDA require greater granularity in sociodemographic factors for subpopulations, particularly in race and ethnicity as well as age. We emphasized the critical importance of collecting detailed data where possible to ensure representative inclusion in clinical trials and studies to support generalizability to target populations for which products are being developed and the safety and efficacy of all products in all populations.

In April 2024 at the GWEP-CC Virtual Meeting, Timothy Farrell, MD, AGSF, and Ramona Rhodes, MD, MPH, MSCS, AGSF, discussed the AGS Intersection of Structural Racism and Ageism (ISR&A) Initiative and AGS’s continued action to achieve equity in health care for older adults and their caregivers. You can view the recording of it on Geriatrics Care Online (GCO) by clicking here, and you can learn about the AGS ISR&A Initiative here.

The US Preventive Services Task Force recently posted their final recommendation statement, evidence summary, and modeling study on screening for breast cancer. These documents were published in the online edition of JAMA and are available on their website. Additional resources such as FAQs, an infographic, video, clinician summary, and discussion guide are also available.

The NIA has announced some positive updates for their 2024 paylines as mentioned in their March budget blog including an increase in both general and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) paylines and for scored applications in the NIA-reviewed Program Projects and Other NIA-reviewed Research categories. For full details, visit the updated NIA funding line policy page.