Physicians News Health news for doctors and patients.

How you can sell your appreciated stock portfolio (or any appreciated assets) and not surrender nearly one third of its value to the IRS in taxes.

Rapid development and disintegration of physician partnerships and changing alliances among physicians and institutions often fail to secure optimal cultural fit, or consider leadership succession, or anticipate ease of integration into a network. Three phases of organizational development are attentive to these problems: pre-deal, during the transaction and post-affiliation.

Patient care management can be made more cost-effective while affording a reasonable lifestyle for physicians and maintaining quality of care by adding a physician extender to the practice’s team. Consider the economic rationales, as well as licensure and reimbursement parameters.

Do you have a duty to protect others who come into contact with your patient who has a contagious disease? Does it matter whether or not the disease is a "reportable" one? The issue of liability to a third party is becoming more timely as new viruses and drug-resistant strains appear.

They remain a fixture in physician employment contracts, shareholder and asset purchase agreements. Physicians must be more attentive than ever to the nature and possible effect of restrictive covenants in their agreements. Courts analyze validity of covenants, reasonableness of their restrictions and remedies for their breach.

Physicians are searching high and low for Internet sites that help them stay informed and involved with health care topics. Here are some of the make-your-life-easier resources that will help to keep you ahead of the curve.

Loss of personal choice of one’s doctor leads to the more central question of whether doctors are really necessary at all. A satirical look at the possibilities available.

No investment or asset can provide the purchaser with such extraordinary leverage and the ability to create liquidity when it is most needed. Consider the advantages and limitations of term and permanent life insurance and how to determine your need.

If you are a specialist, consider the advantages offered by single specialty networks, which include increased control in a managed care environment, enhanced negotiation clout with health plans or primary care groups, shared administrative resources and marketing leverage.

The merger of physicians or their acquisition by hospitals often encounter logistical and bureaucratic obstacles to meaningful unity. Those problems can be overcome by consolidating sites into strategically located ambulatory care centers, an approach that has competitive advantages to the sponsoring organization.