incentive news from FierceHealthcare

Of late, some employers and health plans have been working hard to collect funds from accident victims who win civil settlements. The practice, known as "subrogation," had been in ill repute... Read more...

While it's far from an established practice, physicians are increasingly beginning to sell prescription drugs in their offices. Right now, only 10 percent of U.S. physicians do so, but the number... Read more...

A group of eight economics professors have filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the FTC's decision on Evanston (IL) Northwest Healthcare's merger simply doesn't work. The professors argue... Read more...

Next week, rock band Radiohead is doing something that, to my knowledge, no other major rock act has done. The group will soon be selling digital versions of its new album, "In Rainbows," Read more...

CMS is lowering the boom on physician self-referral, setting plans to ban Medicare payments for many self-referred services. New CMS rules on this subject, which are part of regs proposed for the... Read more...

Here's another dispatch from the Read more...

No one argues that over the long term, managing diabetes intelligently can cut down on long-term medical costs by stemming hugely expensive complications. The question is, do such management programs pay off over the short term? If not, health plans have little incentive to address the problem, according to one analysis. Article

When patients get a call from an anonymous disease management staff nurse, they don't have a lot of incentive to participate in the management program. But there's other ways to get the job done. A new program developed by tire maker Goodyear found that if disease management programs bring a trusted clinician on site, enrollment in such programs jumped dramatically. Enrollment was particularly high if patients were invited to participate during a scheduled visit with a familiar clinician, according to research by CHD Meridian Healthcare. Release

Taking on a very tough problem, two federal legislators have re-introduced a bill which would reward doctors who provide ED- or other emergency-related care with 10 percent Medicare pay increases. The bill also establishes a commission which would look at related issues such as overcrowding in the ED, med mal issues in providing ED-based care, and the shrinking availability of specialists willing to take call. Right now, ED physicians end up with $140,000 in uncompensated care annually, …

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All eyes were on California Monday as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) revealed the state's universal coverage plan. Given that the proposal requires the cooperation of so many interest groups--doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, …

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