Practice Management

While one expert feels that the benefits for family balance outweigh potential risks, the other is concerned that sex selection will lead to a slippery slope.

An EHR should streamline the workflow of all who interact with it. The difficulties surrounding interoperability are the most significant obstacles to achieving a streamlined workflow.

Medicare claims data would be transparent to the public via a free, searchable database if a bill introduced June 18 becomes law. The Medicare Data Access for Transparency and Accountability Act (Medicare DATA Act) is a bipartisan effort, led by US Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore).

This difficult defense-a young woman dying shortly after a routine tubal ligation-was further complicated by conflicting reports about who said what to whom and when.

These cases are interesting in that they were both defense verdicts and the issues were proving when the retained foreign object was left in the abdomen and what the object was.

Only 11% of Americans have a high level of understanding of the key aspects of federal health reform, despite substantial media coverage in the 2-plus years since the legislation's passage.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) has once again issued a lengthy report indicting the US healthcare system as falling abysmally short, using just about any means of measure. The report says that based on 2009 figures, the United States is wasting approximately $750 billion per year on the care of its people.

Letters discuss the myriad of issues affecting the practice of specialties. Joshua A. Copel responds.

An OB/GYN asks if current doctors are sending the wrong message about liability problems in the field of OB/GYN.

Physicians using smartphones and other mobile devices to access patients' electronic health records are increasingly at risk for data breach, but a new initiative from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may allay some fears about possible violations of Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules.

A survey of 72 health organizations found that the growth of physician use of smartphones also has increased the incidence of data breaches, with 96% of respondents experiencing at least 1 data breach in the past 2 years.

Arguing that a relentlessly rising volume of care driven by our discounted fee-for-service payment system is exacerbating both cost inflation and suboptimal care, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has decided to adopt value-based purchasing.

Worried about financial pressure and the effects of healthcare reform, an increasing number of physicians are considering making changes in how they practice medicine.

Experts are focused on how errors happen and how they can be reduced.

In a survey of more than 100 nurses, physicians, and administrators, participants were asked how often they witnessed or experienced disruptive behaviors.

Because research shows that women are more likely than men to forgo, delay and ration medical care because of personal debt incurred from healthcare costs and expenses, investigators set out to determine whether financial hardships associated with medical debt also differ by gender.

About half of 131 US medical schools surveyed reported that they had provided instruction to students on Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse laws in 2010.

CMS will rescind a new Medicare rule requiring physicians to provide their signatures on requisitions for laboratory tests.

The American Medical Association (AMA) recently surveyed physicians about federal rules and regulations that increase their administrative costs and paperwork burden or that interfere with patient care without significantly benefiting patients or the government.

When a physician has a "difficult" encounter with a patient, he or she is apt to attribute the problem to particular characteristics of the patient. However, a new study demonstrates that not only patient characteristics are associated with "difficult" encounters; certain physician factors also predict a difficult interaction.

Across the country, the author has been hearing ob/gyns discuss selling their practices to, or merging them with, a hospital or academic medical center and/or joining an accountable care organization.

An analysis of data from 6,391 physicians in the 2004-2005 Community Tracking Study showed that during this period ob/gyns' mean hourly wages were $83.

Lower earnings, higher malpractice insurance premiums and longer work weeks-last year was a tough year for ob/gyns, according to Medical Economics' 2010 Exclusive Survey.

The author's suggested reading is a thin book titled, Why Hospitals Should Fly: The Ultimate Flight Plan to Patient Safety and Quality Care, which he says has the potential to change one's professional life.

Because some practices have been slow to adopt electronic health records, scant evidence exists to support the commonly held notion that EHRs help mitigate liability risk, according to a published report in American Medical News.

I recall I took some comfort in that adage during my residency. However, such bravado was representative of a different era, a time when 36-hour calls, 120-hour workweeks, and 1 weekend off a month were seen as rites of passage crucial to the creation of competent physicians.

Changes recently proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the 2010 e-prescribing incentive program should make the initiative even more attractive to physicians.

A new study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (9/9/09) supports the Obama administration's claim that improving the efficiency of healthcare delivery would make it possible to cover the uninsured without rationing needed care or raising taxes.

More than 63% of ob/gyns have made changes to their practice because of the risk or fear of liability claims or litigation, and 60% have made such changes because liability insurance is either unavailable or unaffordable.