Teva Pharmaceutical Industries announced recently that it is recalling one lot of its generic Parkinson’s disease combination medication, carbidopa/levodopa, because it potentially contains too much of an active pharmaceutical ingredient making it “super potent.”
The recall affects 3,881 bottles of carbidopa/levodopa 25 mg/100 mg and the FDA announced that the lot number involved is 29C220 and the expiration date is November 2015.
Note that this is just one pharmaceutical company and one lot, only. Please check with your pharmacist about your prescription.
The Parkinson’s Action Network (PAN) is the unified voice of the Parkinson’s community, advocating for better treatments and a cure. In partnership with other Parkinson’s organizations, PAN educates the public and government leaders on better policies for research and improved quality of life for Americans living with Parkinson’s. http://www.parkinsonsaction.org
Something to look forward to is Telehealth, also known as telemedicine, health IT, or connected care. This is the remote delivery of healthcare services and clinical information using telecommunications technology including internet, cellular, wireless, satellite, and telephone. Because specialized care, such as neurologists, aren’t located in every city and town across America, being able to see a physician using everyday technology, such as your home computer and webcam, can be an attractive and reasonable option for many people living with chronic conditions.*
For the Parkinson’s community, telehealth has the potential to be a powerfully valuable service in terms of improving quality of life and better management of symptoms by increasing access to specialists. **
Telemedicine doesn’t cure all ills. Doctors may suggest, for instance, that a patient see her internist when she complains of a pain in her neck. He can’t figure out the cause without touching her. But watching her on the small screen can be enough to keep up with the changes caused by Parkinson’s and to try to help control them.
Lest we get too excited, this technology is evidently in the future for most of us, rather than today. Currently, it is only available in rural areas with few or no doctors.
Also, payment to doctors is traditionally based on the physical presence of the doctor with the patient, according to Jay Sanders, president and CEO of the Global Telemedicine Group. And there’s one word for why: fraud. Medicare fraud costs the country at least a staggering $60 billion a year. But Sanders argues that telemedicine visits would be easy for insurers to monitor, because every visit is recorded. It makes sense to me. Let’s pray for a breakthrough.
There is one other big stumbling block to remote visits: Doctors licensed in one state can’t treat patients in another. Getting licensed in another state is expensive and time-consuming. “Why do we have this ridiculous state-by-state licensure situation?” Sanders asks. “That impedes telemedicine.”
But it is certainly something to look forward to. Meanwhile, check out Doctor on Demand on your iPhone, iPad or Android. I cannot actually recommend this, as I have only seen it on TV, but it is worth a try.
To those of you who contacted me about last week’s column, as well as others, thank you. It validates my reasons for contributing it.
Ann Miner lives in Apple Valley and can be reached at eannminer@yahoo.com.
*Willis, AW, et al. “Neurologist care in Parkinson disease: A utilization, outcomes, and survival study.” Neurology. 77.9 (2011): 851-7.
** Darkins, M.D., Adam, et al. “Care Coordination/Home Telehealth: The Systematic Implementation of Health Informatics, Home Telehealth, and Disease Management to Support the Care of Veteran Patients with Chronic Conditions.” Telemedicine and e-Health. 14.10 (2008): 1118-26
