"Health & Medical News"

One physician’s faxed order to discontinue hydrocodone, marketed as Anexsia, was misread by the pharmacist as an order to discontinue Arixtra, an anticoagulant. Another doctor intended to electronically order clonidine, an antihypertensive, but accidentally ordered the sedative clonazepam because both appeared as “CLON” on the computer screen.

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The movement to align patient safety and payment seems to be picking up a full head of steam. Hospitals and payers are coalescing around the idea that no one should get paid for so-called never events — serious reportable events, such as wrong-site surgery, that kill or maim patients.

Perhaps most significantly, the BlueCross BlueShield Assn. announced in November 2007 that its plans will work toward ending payment for never events. The change will be phased in over several years as the Blues alters its coding and claims processes. A spokesman said adoption will vary among the 39 Blues plans, which insure more than 100 million people, because the change requires renegotiating contracts and securing agreements from local physicians and hospitals.

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Both the eating disorder anorexia and the club-drug ecstasy appear to involve the same serotonin receptor sites in the brain, according to French researchers.

Reuters reported Oct. 3 that researcher Valerie Compan of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Montpelier found that the disease and the drug both activate the 5-HT4 receptor sites, part of the brain’s reward system and located in the nucleus accumbens.

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