Practice Management

Nearly 90 percent of medical professionals believe patients are less likely to sue after a mistake if they receive an apology and explanation for the error.

CMS has suspended contract work as part of its Recovery Audit Contractor program in response to protests filed by two unsuccessful bidders.

Downcoding, whether by audit or during routine claims processing, could be on the rise - particularly for practices with electronic health records, which are able to code for higher levels of service with relative ease.

If the federal government has its way, a quality reporting initiative from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services could pave the way toward establishing a pay-for-performance system.

If 80 percent of the population maintained a personal health record, it would save the U.S. $21 billion a year on health-care costs, according to a recently released study.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced in late October that it will award an incentive payment of 2 percent of a physician's total Medicare allowed charges to doctors who use e-prescribing systems next year.

Georgia plans to unveil in December a consumer-focused "transparency" health website that will contain quality and cost information on the state's hospitals.

Though the use of computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging has skyrocketed in the last decade, the benefits of the technology's increased availability are not clear, according to a new study.

Last month many physicians received a reprieve from the federal government ? and most probably didn?t even realize it.

Do we have any legal recourse against CMS when we believe it has made an E&M error?

I have a patient who has health insurance from her employer as well as Medicare because she is on dialysis. How do I figure out which one is her primary insurer?

I'm looking for compensation information for a practice's chief executive officer, chief operating officer, administrator, and practice manager. What is a fair salary for these positions?

Does malpractice insurance cover charges of defamation?

Mutually exclusive code edits play a role in whether procedures can be bundled.

The modifier -25 is not applicable to all emergency-type services performed in the office.

Medicare is usually the secondary payer, but not always. Check with the patient to see what other type of coverage is involved.

The number of doctors prescribing antibiotics to adults with acute viral bronchitis is still rising, despite the fact that such drugs have no effect on that condition.

The first phase of the Medicare Recovery Audit Contractor program was a boon for budget-minded policymakers on Capitol Hill, but the controversial plan promises another potential headache for physicians.

A wide range of new equipment can help improve your practice - and the quality of patient care.

The average total compensation for an internal medicine physician jumped 8 percent during the past year to $232,963 a year.

Patient collections remains a top concern for MGMA members - and even more so in a declining economy.

With the crumbling economy on everyone's minds, the Medical Group Management Association announced its support of a cost-cutting initiative for physicians at last month's conference in San Diego.

Despite the hefty $11 billion price tag, creating a unique patient identification number for every person in the U.S. would return more than that amount in quality and efficiency gains to the country?s health-care system, according to a study the RAND Corp.

The largest health insurer in Massachusetts is aggressively pushing e-prescribing, requiring physicians in the state to prescribe electronically by 2011 or get bounced from its bonus-payment programs.

It's not health insurance bureaucracy, an aging population or malpractice liability, but rather rampant spending on ineffective and unproven technology that is the top driver of the increased cost of health care in the United States, according to a recent study.