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Primary care for all Americans

Common Sense Family Doctor

These days, most adults need to wait several months for a new patient appointment with a family doctor, if they can get one at all. Even if drugmakers and PBMs could be brought to heel, though, America is still lacking a major ingredient of a truly patient-centered health system: well-resourced, adequately supported primary care.

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Migraine headaches: diagnostic and treatment tips

Common Sense Family Doctor

Clinical practice guidelines on the management of episodic migraine headache, including the 2023 US Veterans Affairs/Department of Defense guideline , preferentially recommend triptans for most patients.

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What's new in osteoporosis screening and fracture prevention?

Common Sense Family Doctor

In the two years since publication of the latest American Family Physician review article on osteoporosis , new guidelines and research studies have enhanced management of this common condition. In early 2025, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) updated its recommendations on screening for osteoporosis.

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Overtreatment of prostate cancer in the active surveillance era

Common Sense Family Doctor

Active surveillance is a management strategy that is intended to limit overtreatment of localized prostate cancer by monitoring patients with periodic PSA measurements and prostate biopsies to delay or avoid curative therapy (radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy) and its adverse effects.

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Does transitional care management improve outcomes after discharge from the hospital?

Common Sense Family Doctor

Recognizing their potential to save money and improve outcomes, in 2013 the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services began allowing practices to bill separately for transitional care management (TCM) services that included an interactive contact within two business days of discharge and a dedicated face-to-face office visit within 14 days.

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Identifying and managing gambling-related harms

Common Sense Family Doctor

A recent article in the BMJ summarized a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline on identification and management of gambling-related harms. Psychology Today maintains a national directory of therapists with training in CBT for gambling disorder. ** This post first appeared on the AFP Community Blog.

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In asymptomatic severe aortic stenosis, is earlier intervention better?

Common Sense Family Doctor

A recent editorial in the Journal of the American Heart Association discussed a “paradigm shift” in management of severe aortic stenosis: 69% of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries who underwent aortic valve replacement from 2012-2019 had TAVI, with the percentage undergoing SAVR falling from 75% in 2012 to just 10% in 2019.