Practice Management

It could wreck your practice and your marriage, too, some say. Others say it's the only way to go.

Article six in our series tells you how to develop the systems and procedures you'll need to get your practice running smoothly.

When doctors meet a malpractice plaintiffs' attorney, they don't get a warm-fuzzy feeling. When they meet Bruce Fagel however, they don't know what to think because he's definitely "one of them," but also "one of us."

Maintain a few simple controls so staffers don't develop sloppy fiscal habits.

A well-designed, up-to-date, and error-free charge ticket improves Medicare compliance, coding, and, ultimately, collections.

Medical privacy protections, so stringently enforced under HIPAA, are being eroded, critics charge. And the culprit is the government itself.

By comparing your coding habits against these national norms, you can learn whether you're overcoding or undercoding.

A debate is raging among physicians about whether to charge patients for services that payers don't cover.

New respect for academic medicine; Helping your med mal carrier see reason; Why punish everyone? Confronting HMOs on coding

A physician discovers a possibly fatal blunder in his own mother's treatment.

Request for information; mail order pharmacies; postcard reminders; release of records

Rising costs, lower reimbursements, and needless regulations have many doctors feeling overwhelmed.

A Texas judge hits a high-profile lawyer with a $50,000 fine for filing a frivolous malpractice suit.

We examine the unprecedented job actions staged and contemplated by New Jersey doctors from a unique viewpoint--as reporters and patients.

It doesn't cost much to thwart hackers and satisfy HIPAA at the same time.

Payers often lump separate claims together to pay you less. But you don't have to let them.

The differences between university-based and private practice have blurred. Productivity incentives, anyone?

Excessive malpractice premiums forced this physician to give up the work she loves.

You can't beat shared medical appointments for patient education and compliance, say proponents.

The practice--known as factoring--can just as easily put you in a financial jam as get you out of one.

We may be able to learn a lot from the methods other countries have for handling malpractice litigation.

Bill payments; accounting rules; accidental disclosures; disclosure to a spouse; treatment for STDs; document shredding

Terminated after four troubled months, this doctor went to court and won $30 million. There are lessons to be learned from his struggles.

Boilerplate policies and warnings may not make fun reading, but they'll help keep you and your Web site out of court.

Having a clinical pharmacist on staff can enhance patient care, prevent medication errors, and make your workday more manageable.