The ASAM Criteria—the American Society of Addiction Medicine’s guidelines for addiction treatment—are not just a tool for program administrators and insurance bureaucrats. They provide a useful conceptual framework for thinking about your patients and what kind of care they need.

Find out what the FDA’s Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies (REMS) program focusing on extended-release and long-acting opioid analgesic medications is all about, in an interview with Edwin A. Salsitz, MD.

Learn how you can use The ASAM Criteria to determine what kind of care a patient with an addiction needs and help ensure funding for that treatment, in an interview with David Mee-Lee, MD.

Since I last wrote about MOC in 2010, the most relevant news has not been within the program itself, but in the increasingly rancorous reaction against its requirements from physicians of all specialties. Regardless, it doesn’t look like ABPN is going to be ditching MOC any time soon, so this article pretty much lays out what you have to do, without (much) editorializing.

Get insight into how you can use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to help patients with depression who have failed to respond to therapy and antidepressants, in an interview with neuropsychiatrist Karl Lanocha, MD.

Like most psychiatrists, you are likely a bit wary of sharing your therapy notes with your patients. Will they be offended by reading painfully honest descriptions of their issues? Will they be confused by your use of psychiatric terminology?

In 2011, the federal government began offering financial rewards for providers to implement electronic health records (EHRs) in caring for their Medicare and Medicaid patients. For eligible doctors, these “meaningful use” incentives could provide you with extra income of up to $44,000 over five years in Medicare incentives and $63,750 in Medicaid incentives over six years.

Alongside DSM, another conceptual model has risen, one based on concepts originally developed by Adolf Meyer and Karl Jaspers in the early 20th century. In the 1980s, these ideas were organized and later were described in the book, The Perspectives of Psychiatry, published in 1998 (Johns Hopkins University Press). The Perspectives of Psychiatry’s authors, Paul McHugh and Phillip Slavney, have steadfastly viewed the DSM system as fundamentally flawed and have consistently expressed concern about its negative impact on the field.

DSM-IV task force chair Allen Frances, MD, delves into the details of DSM-5.

In today’s fast-paced, technology-focused, and cost-conscious healthcare environment, many clinical caregivers find themselves anxious, frustrated, and under pressure.