Physicians News Health news for doctors and patients.

An HMO and its physicians cannot be sued in federal court for breaching their fiduciary duties to patients when they implement a managed care program in which the physicians receive financial incentives to contain costs.

Physicians are rightfully concerned that unfiltered access to online ratings of them without appropriate safeguards may be detrimental to informed patient decision making, and may have distorting effects on patient access to care.

While Independence Blue Cross and Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield have recently ceded ground on coding and reimbursement methodologies, it remains to be seen whether insurers and physicians will be able to develop the necessary level of trust and collaboration to make innovative systems work.

The question to address is whether or not the current resources dedicated to marketing are used wisely and whether they are sufficient for you to grow and sustain the practice.

The draft compliance program guidance will likely become the standard of care for all physician practices and those practices without some formal plan will be extremely vulnerable when responding to any third party audit for billing purposes.

Physicians who fail to take proper precautions and to correctly structure their practices' relationships with their billing companies risk significant legal and financial liability.

Application Services Provider is a relatively new type of outsource provider that delivers and supports software as a service over a network, such as the Internet. This trend is beginning to offer physician practices new and attractive alternatives for changing or upgrading management information systems.

The same characteristics that define Internet e-health commerce are also giving rise to increased scrutiny by government enforcement agencies. The U.S. Department of Justice has started to expand enforcement activities in matters related to e-health web sites for both HCFA and FDA.

The big question is, how can one recognize a prudent opportunity when it appears, after having gone through a bad experience?

The OIG’s basic concern is that rent paid by physicians to other physicians who refer patients to them may be disguised kickbacks paid to the physician-landlords to induce referrals.