Physicians News Health news for doctors and patients.

While outsourcing may be a cost-effective alternative for many medical practices, there are a host of practical and legal issues that must be considered (and in most cases addressed in the written agreement between the practice and the billing company) before taking this leap.

Some new risks are anticipated to arise because of incentives inherent to the design of the Part D benefit, but others are as old as health insurance itself.

To celebrate anything or draw any conclusion from the 2006 decline in premiums would be a mistake. Six times in the past 14 years Pennsylvania’s liability payouts have declined – only to be followed by substantial increases in following years.

Gov. Rendell is cynically attempting to trick the media and public by saying "lawsuits" are down while the number of doctors sued trends significantly upward.

Pa. is in the final phases of expanding the scope of what pharmacists can do in collaboration with physicians, including managing drug therapy in an institutional setting and administering injectable medications at the retail level, while retail pharmacy chains are expanding their patient services and are poised to open primary care centers staffed by nurse practitioners.

Making an investment in real estate shouldn’t disrupt your carefully-built financial strategy.

Practices of all shapes and sizes can use the Internet to conduct economical, reliable surveys that give your patients a voice, and provide valuable information on improving service and care.

Accurate and meaningful information will strengthen the doctor-patient relationship while misleading or inaccurate information may complicate that relationship considerably. Physicians need to act quickly to influence what standards, data and measures are used and push accrediting agencies to police CDST effectively.

In light of Wellspan, it may be increasingly difficult for hospitals, or other employers of specialty physicians, to enforce restrictive covenants against specialists who are in short supply in their geographic area.

The OIG and CMS are looking to strike the right balance between encouraging the dissemination of these technologies and minimizing the risk of abusive arrangements. The many conditions in their proposals suggest that they put greater weight in the latter objective, however.