Practice Management

What to do with presented with requests from insurance companies for more patient information

In the past decade, there was a sharp increase in medical liability premiums, but recently, malpractice insurance has started to level off, indicating a potential new trend.

Get a head's up on efficiency basics.

Practices making the plunge into electronic health records prior to the final definition of "meaningful use" should require the EHR contract guarantee the system will meet those requirements.

Economic and health reform uncertainty have more primary care practices considering selling to hospitals, according to discussion at the 2009 Medical Group Management Association annual conference in Denver last month.

Medicare Part B causes medical groups the least amount of hassle, according to a survey of 1,700 practices released at the Medical Group Management Association?s annual conference in Denver last month.

Inform your malpractice insurance carrier any time you have suspicion that a patient is considering a lawsuit.

Supplies in your practice can cost more than you think.

Allowing a doctor to bill for a discharge the night before it occurs prevents a situation in which patients are occupying hospital beds solely in wait of a physician.

The author describes feeling busy and bored - the perfect recipe for burnout - until a reacquaintance refreshes his perspective.

Holston Medical Group employs team-based strategy to treat patients with cardiometabolic disorders.

HSAs are a tax-free, interest-bearing investment tool in which funds deposited can be spent only on qualified health services.

As healthcare enters a critical stage, Medical Economics will continue to provide information on practice management, patient care and personal and professional finances.

Patients are willing to use e-mail and physicians' websites to communicate with their doctors in an effort to save time, as long as they do not have to pay for the ability.

The hospitalist career path is among medicine's fastest growing specialties.

Meditation and experience sharing may improve mood and lower feelings of burnout, according to a study in JAMA.

Retail health clinics provide care for routine illnesses at a lower cost and similar quality as offered in physician offices, urgent care centers or emergency departments, according to a new study.

Staff overtime can cost practices thousands of dollars yearly. Learn how to control overtime.

A rule proposed in the health reform legislation would allow health insurers to sell plans across state lines.

While primary care physicians, by and large, worked as much in 2008 as they did the previous year, the number of patients seen increased just marginally, according to Medical Economics' annual productivity survey.

It may be time in the profession to value quality over quantity.

Exceptions that permit referrals under Stark are complex, therefore determining a violation has happened and the preferred way of managing are also difficult.

Alfred J. Maher, MD, differs from most hospital physicians in that he didn't begin working as a hospitalist soon after residency.

The Society of Hospital Medicine's most recent bi-annual survey, which covers 2007-2008, indicates that hospitalists are young (the mean age is 40) and almost two-thirds (65 percent) are male.

With the rapid and sustained growth of the hospitalist movement, cooperation between teams of physicians becomes even more critical.

Whether just done with residency, an experienced hospitalist seeking new work, or a private practice physician transitioning to hospitalist work, a job hunt, at the outset, is an exercise in information-gathering.

More than 140,000 (23 percent) of all office-based physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants in the U.S. are now using electronic prescribing, according to Surescripts. At the current pace, the company projects, the total number of health care professionals prescribing medication electronically via its network this year will more than double from the 74,000 active electronic prescribers who used it at the end of last year.

A new Web initiative to be launched in Ohio by several health plans is designed to benefit patients and practices by reducing the time, effort, and expense associated with the paperwork required for office visits.

There are a number of disease processes that must be managed, and doing so offers opportunities for reimbursement that you might not have been aware of.

I sometimes practice medicine with poor vision too. Here are some of my ailments.