Physicians News Health news for doctors and patients.

HHS' Office of Inspector General has issued its final "Compliance Program Guidance for Individual and Small Group Physician Practices" to help protect doctors from Medicare Fraud & Abuse prosecution. We offer some guidance on the guidance, in five easy pieces.

Analysis of the first Pennsylvania judicial decision in which a court has determined that due process rights may apply to a physician when that physician is de-selected from an HMO provider panel.

The most common business continuity tool is a funded buy-sell agreement, sometimes referred to as a business will, which is inexpensive to draft and less complicated than other ways of transferring ownership and management of a closely held corporation and can be responsive to changing circumstances.

By beginning to focus on corporate, financial and operational planning now, your practice will hopefully sail into 2001 with little fuss.

The legality of the well-honed tradition of professional courtesy has been called into question due to an upsurge in government's efforts to ensure accurate billing of claims, new federal laws addressing physician referral and patient relationships and the novel application of existing laws. Perhaps even more unfortunate, no one clear viewpoint has arisen as to its continuing legal viability.

Ill-equipped to undertake systemic health care reform directed at achieving greater power, physicians should consider radical, long-term proposals that foster a more equitable distribution of power at the state and federal levels.

Transitioning does not mean retirement, it means a clear strategy to use your wealth to transition from your present lifestyle to your ideal lifestyle. Maybe you've never been given the opportunity to think like this.

Any physician faced with an opportunity to participate in a nonqualified plan should have a basic understanding of the tension between the taxation of nonqualified benefits and the security of such benefits.

The legal and business issues which a retiring physician must resolve will vary depending upon their practice arrangement: sole shareholder, partner in a practice or employed physician.

With increasing frequency, courts are being called upon to evaluate the legality of relationships between providers and third-parties in the context of civil litigation. The facts and outcome in Zimmer illustrate a number of important observations that derive from the line of cases involving civil enforcement of the fraud and abuse laws.