Opinion

DPC, billing confusion and defensive medicine are the hot topics in this issue's Your Voice.

“Patients respect certification a lot more than reviews on Yelp,” says ABIM president in an exclusive interview.

New Medicare payment system still coming into focus, but practices should act now.

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.

Small practices are set to receive a sizable slice of federal funding in an effort to ease their transition into the Quality Payment Program (QPP), but the shift has not started without its strains.

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.

I agree that electing Hillary Clinton will be historic for America, but the message of Bernie Sanders shouldn’t be muted to get there.

What will it mean to doctors that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed suit July 21 in District Court to block two mergers involving health plan giants?

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.

Curiosity can be costly if your medical practice staff checks a patient’s medical record in certain situations, says a healthcare attorney.

Flexibility allows practices to define what “minimum necessary” information must be shared regarding patient records, but many still are without a standard.

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.

HCVcAg tests may cost less and improve diagnostic capacity in settings of high hepatitis C virus prevalence, according to new research.

Removing potential barriers to treat hepatitis C virus is yet another key component to patient access, notes lead researcher.

For Eve Shapiro, MD, MPH, being a delegate at this year’s Democratic National Convention is just the latest expression of her dedication to progressive causes.

Healthcare has played a very underwhelming role throughout the 2016 presidential election cycle thus far.

On the night she became the official Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton’s healthcare experience came to the forefront.

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.

While Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is over, what he started must continue in the spirit of democracy.

To gain the respect and trust of Bernie Sanders voters, Hillary Clinton must utilize some of her “change maker” skills we heard about Tuesday night.

It will cost a lot to solve the challenge of covering the 30 million Americans who are still uninsured despite the Affordable Care Act.

In the latest batch of letters to the editor, Obamacare and disturbing technological advances are at the top of mind.

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.

Analysts and the nation’s physicians weigh in on how the Affordable Care Act has affected the daily practice of medicine

Five areas physicians should keep an eye on to optimize reimbursement for the remainder of 2016.

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.

Practices have been collecting this data for decades-and now is the time to start using it.

The controversy at the start of the Democratic National Convention highlights the importance of ethics and transparency, something physicians understand well.