Practice Management

Having a higher number of firearm laws in a state may be associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities from suicides and homicides, according to a report of a study across all 50 states published online first by JAMA Internal Medicine.

You may believe that running diagnostic tests for patients with a low risk of serious disease may help lower their anxiety and offer reassurance. A new study, however, reveals that although testing may help curb future primary care visits, it does little to soothe anxious patients.

Almost 98% of primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists trust and recommend over-the-counter (OTC) medicines to their patients, according to a new survey.

Primary care is the "beleaguered," "underappreciated stepchild" of U.S. healthcare that's on a "mission impossible" as currently organized, but three prominent thought leaders believe they've created the recipe to change that.

Testing will include states, public agencies, federally funded exchanges and health information technology companies covering more than 50% of the U.S. population.

Satisfaction and usability ratings for certified electronic health records have decreased since 2010 among clinicians across a range of indicators, according to survey results released by the American College of Physicians and AmericanEHR Partners.

Eighty percent of physicians believe that within 5 years, virtual assistants will drastically change how they interact and use electronic health records and other healthcare apps, according to a recent survey of U.S. doctors.

Sixty-four percent of healthcare professionals believe that achieving adoption of an electronic health record system is a roadblock to successful implementation, finds a joint survey conducted by TEKsystems Healthcare Services and HIMSS Analytics.

The stand-alone fee-for-service payment could disappear by the end of the decade if a plan newly released by the National Commission on Physician Payment Reform is followed.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s ability to protect individuals from preventable infectious diseases is likely to be hampered by sequestration, and analysts from research and consulting firm GlobalData argue that the cuts ultimately will fail to accomplish the goal of decreasing federal spending.

Primary care physicians are bombarded with so many alerts from their electronic health record systems that they're in danger of overlooking important test results, creating potential patient-safety issues, according to a new study.

A majority of healthcare leaders report that they have qualified for meaningful use stage one, according to results from the 24th Annual Health Information and Management Systems Society Leadership Survey.

Practicing clinicians strongly believe that health information technology can overcome communication challenges among care providers, according to the 2013 iHIT study conducted by the Health Information and Management Systems Society and HIMSS Analytics

Physician offices that move to electronic health record systems but don’t make additional changes in the practice to enhance revenue and cut costs for services no longer needed stand to lose money, according to new research.

Healthcare information technology companies Cerner, McKesson, Allscripts, athenahealth, Greenway Medical Technologies, and RelayHealth have launched the CommonWell Health Alliance to support universal, trusted access to healthcare data through seamless interoperability.

A health information technology "code of C=conduct" proposed by athenahealth Inc. calls on the HIT industry, particularly electronic health record vendors, to abide by five principles related to data portability, patient safety, provider freedom of choice, and meaningful use.

Physician groups are among the many voices chiding federal lawmakers for their failure to avert billions of dollars in arbitrary spending cuts that will result in a cut to Medicare reimbursements.

Breakdowns in the physician-patient encounter, most notably "cognitive errors" by doctors, are the most frequent causes of diagnostic errors in the primary care setting.

We've taken a close look at the two medical journal and news-reading apps, docwise and Read by QxMD, that provide the best experience.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced new proposed policies this week that the agency says will result in increased benefits for beneficiaries.

As it looks increasingly likely that Congress won't reach a deal this week to head off broad cuts to federal programs known as sequestration, physicians should begin preparing themselves for across-the-board 2% cuts to Medicare reimbursement.

The Affordable Care Act is expected to increase the number of insured Americans by more than 30 million by the time it’s fully implemented, but one provision of the act already has resulted in the addition of an estimated 3 million insured.

In a survey of more than 1,400 physicians, 61% of primary care physicians said they'd be willing to participate in an accountable care organization with at least one payer.

Jay Wolfson, DrPH, JD, speaks with Medical Economics Editor-in-Chief Lois A. Bowers, MA, about an experimental Patient-Centered Medical Home and health law issues.

There's no end in sight for obesity epidemic. Here's how you can help your patients and stem the tide of growing healthcare costs.