Practice Management

Recognizing the rising cost of healthcare and the importance of providing value to patients, resource utilization and value assessments will now be explicitly considered in the development of clinical practice guidelines and performance measures from the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association.

While direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medications means patients are coming to the doctor with drug-related requests, some see an opportunity to educate.

Many patients don’t take their medications as prescribed, but experts say there are ways to help fix that problem.

In the era of increased emphasis on quality metrics, convincing patients with chronic conditions is key to improving treatment adherence. Here are strategies to motivate patients with diabetes.

A reader writes that narrow networks may contain costs, but they don't provide value.

A reader objects to the time and expense of the certification process.

A reader writes that the proposed replacement for the Sustainable Growth Rate formula will not control healthcare spending or improve the quality of care.

Individual Retirement Accounts and retirement plan distributions have complicated rules that must be closely followed by physicians hoping to pass on wealth to their heirs. Here's what physicians need to know.

Good news for physicians concerned about the 90-day grace period: Most health exchange enrollees have paid their premiums

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have delayed ICD-10 end-to-end testing in July, in efforts to readjust the timeline for ICD-10 implementation.

Physicians are facing a new set of administrative challenges for ACA exchange patients, ranging from verifying coverage to coping with narrow networks.

Physicians and hospitals will have more time to attest to Meaningful Use Stage 2 and Stage 3 and more flexibility about the electronic health record systems they use, under a new proposal from CMS and ONC.

Though women are often thought of as the drivers for healthcare in their families, many face cost and logistical barriers to obtaining healthcare for themselves, according to a new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Primary care physicians at hospital-owned practices earn more than their counterparts at physician-owned practices, but neither earn nearly as much as healthcare executives, two recent surveys reveal.

The Healthcare Cost Institute is joining with insurance companies Aetna, Humana, and UnitedHealthcare to launch a website that aggregates price and quality data to help patients with healthcare decisions starting in 2015.

The American Medical Association is calling for major reforms to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Meaningful Use incentive program for electronic health records.

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield has announced a new plan to verify a patient’s insurance status at the time of service, thereby taking the guesswork out of treating patients covered by a new exchange plan.

Healthcare organizations are getting better at protecting patient data, but employee errors and negligence still are significant challenges.

A new report is gaining attention for its prediction that U.S. companies could save trillions of dollars over the next decade by eliminating employee health plans.

The Federation of State Medical Boards has issued new guidelines for the use of telemedicine, but some of the provisions, including the board’s definition of telemedicine, have prompted criticism from the American Telemedicine Association.

EHR vendors and other healthcare IT stakeholders contested and criticized new certification rules proposed by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology for 2015 in a Health IT Policy Committee hearing.

Hospitals across the country have been purchasing practices at a rapid pace, but a new study shows that increased hospital ownership may lead to higher prices for patients.

Critics of maintenance of certification should make their opinions known to the certifying boards

Thousands of providers rely on regional extension centers (RECs) to reach Meaningful Use requirements for their EHRs, but now some of these centers will be at risk of closing due to funding being stopped at the end of 2014

Though almost 15,000 physicians have signed a petition rallying against new Maintenance of Certification rules, the American Board of Internal Medicine says that MOC enrollment is growing.

Passage of the ACA and trends in the insurance industry are putting more of the cost burden on patients through high-deductible health plans, with significant implications for physicians, their income, and patient outcomes.

With claim denial rates expected to rise in coming years, here are some of the most common reasons for non-payment and suggestions for ways to capture revenue for your practice.

Outlining the differences and changes in coding for ischemic heart disease in the International Classification of Diseases-10th Revision-Clinical Management (ICD-10-CM)

Physicians and billers should understand the difference between modifier -22, -52, and -53 for current procedural terminology coding.

Suicide is the third most-frequent cause of death in persons aged 10 to 54, so primary care physicians need to be prepared for the ethical and legal ramifications.