October 12, 2009 State and local health agencies must develop protocols that guide physicians and other providers on how to allocate scarce resources during public health crises, such as terrorist attacks or pandemics, the Institute of Medicine said in a report sent late last month to HHS, which commissioned the... ... FULL STORY
August 10, 2009 It took four years, a scathing national report that ranked the state's emergency care system as one of the worst in the country, and—in a roundabout way—the election of President Barack Obama to get a law passed in Arizona that gave its emergency physicians and on-call specialists a... ... FULL STORY
By Linda Wilson July 27, 2009 A new law in Connecticut makes it easier for hospital systems to employ physicians. Passed in June, the law permits hospitals or health systems to create not-for-profit medical foundations to employ physicians. The law went into effect on July 1. ... FULL STORY
By Elizabeth Gardner May 26, 2009 Concern about the looming shortage of physicians mostly focuses on the fear that patients won’t be able to find a primary-care doctor. But perhaps even more dire is a looming surgeon shortage. While some primary care can pass to nurses and physician assistants, there’s no substitute for a trained... ... FULL STORY
May 11, 2009 A federal judge gave Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center permission to return to court with racketeering claims against a health plan and two physician organizations. ... FULL STORY
By Alice Hohl April 27, 2009 A major retention and recruitment issue that was previously a gender issue—work-life balance—is now a generational issue. Younger doctors of both genders are making the same demands that were once the domain of young mothers in medical practice, says Joseph Scopelliti, M.D. ... FULL STORY
March 23, 2009 Lawmakers who want to offer a 10% Medicare reimbursement increase for emergency department care are looking to health information technology adoption of all things to offset that pay bump. ... FULL STORY
December 22, 2008 Officials for the nation’s emergency departments called on the government to provide more resources to help prevent overcrowding, yet some experts argue that additional quality measures need to be developed to fully improve emergency care. ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely October 20, 2008 A sudden exodus of four surgeons from the Hawaiian islands has local providers concerned about stemming the loss of qualified physicians. This month, three of Hawaii's five orthopedic surgeons said they would no longer practice there, and the two who remain don’t work full time. ... FULL STORY
By Shawn Rhea October 06, 2008 While medical tourism growth in healthcare profit centers such as orthopedic surgery and plastic surgery may draw some specialty doctors back to their homelands, most international physicians trained stateside are choosing to stay. ... FULL STORY
By Vince Galloro June 23, 2008 Few would question the financial importance of recruiting physicians to rural hospitals. David Bachman is trying to put a dollar figure on that importance, while accounting regulations are making clear what the cost is, too. Bachman estimates in a recent report that newly recruited physicians ramp... ... FULL STORY
By Jennifer Lubell May 05, 2008 After four years of trying to make it as a small-town family physician in Tennessee, Kim Howerton, M.D., realized that things weren’t working anymore. In 2005, she made a decision to close the portion of the practice she shared with an internist and go into academic medicine. Her reasons for... ... FULL STORY
By Barbara Kirchheimer April 07, 2008 As the leading Democratic presidential contenders duke it out over whether it is possible or even desirable to require all Americans to have health insurance, it might seem an uncertain time to be in the business of operating free health clinics for the uninsured. But those involved in Volunteers... ... FULL STORY
March 10, 2008 Armed with $45.8 million from an initial public stock offering, IPC-The Hospitalist Co. is poised to grow by acquisition, says Adam Singer, M.D., chairman, CEO and CMO of the company. ... FULL STORY
November 05, 2007 The smallest physician practices still make up the largest percentage of medical practices as a whole, but their share of the pie is shrinking, according to a recent study. ... FULL STORY
October 05, 2007 Hospital employment rose to roughly 4.57 million workers in September, a one-month increase of 14,800 employees, or 0.3%, according to seasonally adjusted figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. All figures are preliminary. For the year ended in September, hospitals added about 113,700... ... FULL STORY
October 01, 2007 A decision by IPC-The Hospitalist Co. to pursue a $105 million initial public offering is a sign of the growth seen in the hospitalist industry. The move also could turn into a big payoff for its management, which owns more than 9% of the company. On Aug. 31, IPC registered with the SEC to sell up... ... FULL STORY
October 01, 2007 Two recent reports on the impact of hospital resident work-hour limits did little to settle the debate on their worth. In two reports published in the Sept. 5 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers didn’t have much positive or negative to point to while... ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch September 04, 2007 In a legal blow to the efforts of physician unions, the Federation of Physicians & Dentists in June agreed to stop coordinating negotiations anywhere in the country, settling a lawsuit that alleged the organization illegally drove up fees on behalf of 120 Cincinnati-area OB/GYNs, according to an... ... FULL STORY
By Cinda Becker August 06, 2007 Perhaps it was inevitable, but a prominent company that is part of the fastest growing specialty in medicine finds itself in the middle of a coverage disagreement between a hospital and an insurer. The charge is racketeering, and hospitalists—those site-based specialists touted for improving... ... FULL STORY
July 16, 2007 Faculty doctors at academic medical centers are putting more hours into clinical practice to help med schools keep up financially, while 10-year trends also show relatively flat increases in doc compensation. Those are among the findings of the new Medical Group Management Association report on... ... FULL STORY
By Michael Romano June 18, 2007 Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Joe Barton (R-Texas), two top members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, have asked the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality to fund a new study by the Institute of Medicine to see whether patient safety is being undermined by long work shifts by... ... FULL STORY
By David Burda April 02, 2007 Industries—big and small—have natural life cycles. There’s birth, then proliferation, competition thins the herd, then consolidation. The hospitalist movement within the healthcare industry is no different, as frequent contributor Jay Greene points out in this issue’s Top... ... FULL STORY
April 02, 2007 The average turnover rate among physicians employed by medical groups increased slightly to 6.7% in 2006, while turnover among the growing population of female doctors dropped by nearly 1%, according to an annual survey by Cejka Search, a St. Louis-based search firm. ... FULL STORY
By Michael Romano April 02, 2007 The vast majority of America’s physicians still work alone or in small group practices, according to a new HHS survey of office-based doctors. ... FULL STORY
April 02, 2007 Regarding the Feb. 20 Recapping the News item on the touting its members’ combined economic impact of $451 billion in 2005: I guess it is good that the problem thanks itself by turning its failures into a success story. Should we also thank HIV/AIDS patients for their contribution? ... FULL STORY
By Matthew DoBias March 20, 2007 Hospitals across the country made significant improvements in how they care for patients suffering from heart attacks, heart failure or pneumonia, but quality experts warned that some states do better than others and urged hospitals to strive toward closing the quality gap. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn March 19, 2007 Group practice leaders responding to the 17th annual Modern Healthcare/Modern Physician Survey of Executive Opinions on Key Information Technology Issues are looking to spend more on healthcare IT in the near term than they are currently spending, but how much more is widely variable. ... FULL STORY
By Melanie Evans March 09, 2007 The AFL-CIO's executive council cleared the way for the California Nurses Association to join the labor federation by May 1. ... FULL STORY
March 05, 2007 What happens when a physician is no longer able to physically stand the rigors of a regular practice and still wants to use his background and skills? ... FULL STORY
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