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As medical groups continue to struggle in today’s complex and changing healthcare business environment, there is a rise in the number of these groups submitting bankruptcy filings across the country. These bankruptcies are not the result of malpractice suits in favor of the plaintiffs and have little to do with medicine or the business of healthcare.

Recent guidance issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeking to clarify patient safety work product (PSWP) privilege under the Patient Safety Act has instead stoked conflicting opinions among organizations representing healthcare providers as to how the provision should be interpreted.

If you have been following the articles regarding the mergers of Anthem with Cigna and Aetna with Humana, you know there is much speculation by all the experts about whether the deals will ever finish.

Recent analysis by the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. reveals that many insurers are losing money in ACA individual markets, with aggregate year over year losses more than doubling, and with post-tax margins between –9% and –12%. Losses like these resulted in UnitedHealth Group leaving the California ACA market after only one year.

The disparity in pay between blacks and whites has been well documented over the years, with sociologists imputing everything from systemic discrimination to differences in education and employment expectations for the inequality in paychecks.

While the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that nearly $29 billion of improper payments were made in 2015, according to spokespersons for the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and CMS, the full extent of EHR fraud remains elusive.

When physician groups in the Dallas-Fort Worth area started to feel the pressure of value-based contracts, they realized quickly that banding together was the best way to maintain autonomy while staying competitive in a changing market.

With all the pressures facing independent practices-from adjusting to value-based payments to meeting the growing demands of patients-business innovators may provide some key practice management lessons.

With more and more hospitals in recent years evolving their own employees into attending physician roles, this appellate decision clarifies the parameters of everyone’s responsibilities-and the need for specificity in determining duties and protocols when a private attending physician is in charge.

A malpractice reform bill introduced earlier this year in the U.S. House of Representatives, the latest attempt to rein in medical malpractice awards on a national level, already has run into some conservative opposition on Capitol Hill.