While some health care organizations remain disappointed with their Internet results, others sense they're on the edge of an unprecedented era of global communication, electronic commerce and education. This article provides guidelines to ensure your success.

Gary C. Brown, M.D., offers a five-step plan for physicians to challenge the health care industry trend toward decreasing physician autonomy. Physicians must learn the business language, collaborate effectively, decrease the rate of rise in number of physicians, take active political roles and halt the trend of physicians selling their practices.

Decide whether you need "own-occ" coverage, and learn how that decision affects your choice of disability companies and policies.

The first step is identifying high-risk enrollees with self-administered surveys. The authors discuss population-based screening instruments and probability of repeat hospitalizations surveys. The second step is following the at-risk patient. Interviews and case management programs are appraised.

How to weigh advantages and disadvantages of practice mergers. Specific traps to watch out for include ownership, governance, compensation, liability, fraud and abuse, reimbursement, taxation, benefits, antitrust and personnel.

Physician unionization has been in the spotlight during the past few months. Physicians may join or form a union, but must be mindful of the potential obstacles and barriers involved.

A representative risk pool funding scheme is portrayed, and freedoms and limitations of implied partnerships are discussed as they impact the sharing of profits and losse

Paul J. Fink, M.D., reflects upon the erosion of significance plaguing the medical profession, and its impact on medical education. Physicians must transcend feelings of powerlessness and guilt if they are to overcome that erosion.

Conventional wisdom can lead to costly decisions. What to do with your investment portfolios when the market is at its best and at its worst.

Specialists bear special burdens when health systems administer risk contracts: information risk, market share risk and financial risk. How specialists need to position themselves in anticipation of these burdens.