lawmakers

Federal mental health parity legislation--designed to require health plans to cover mental illnesses on an equal basis with physical illnesses--has made meaningful progress of late. However, it's... Read more...

Triggered by a wave of private investment in nursing homes by players like The Carlyle Group, federal legislators have begun to take a closer look at how such investments affect the care such homes... Read more...

The American Hospital Association has won broad support from the U.S. House of Representatives in its attempt to change the IRS's proposed community-benefit reporting rules. More than 300 members of... Read more...

Fairly or not, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) seems to be exasperated with nonprofit hospitals--and that could mean trouble. Yesterday, during a roundtable discussion on nonprofits and charity care,... Read more...

Despite having spent $40 million to settle kickback charges, medical device maker Medtronic has continued to pay millions in consulting fees to spine surgeons, according to a whistle-blower involved... Read more...

A San Francisco physician has been charged with a particularly nasty offense--that he gave excessive medications to a patient to speed his death and collect his organs for transplant use. If... Read more...

While it's becoming clear that overtaxed, sleep-deprived interns are a hazard, professors in U.S. medical schools seem convinced long resident shifts are important. A new Mayo Clinic survey has found... Read more...

As we've noted previously in FierceHealthcare, the long shifts worked by residents may not be good for patient care, as error rates shoot up when they get too tired. But according to one study, it could hit facilities in the pocketbook, and hard, if they were to work fewer hours. Why? Because someone else, probably physician assistants, nurse practitioners or hospitalists, would have to do the work. What's more, facilities might have trouble adding such workers, as each category …

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Lawmakers in nine states are considering measures which would allow physicians to apologize for mistakes without fearing that their apology would be used against them in a malpractice suit. According to American Medical Association research, at least 27 other states have already passed such laws in recent times. The laws are designed to encourage doctors to explain what happened when something goes wrong, inform patients of their options and apologize. Right now, many doctors are warned …

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> A doctor-owned med mal insurer based in California is offering insured physicians a total of $21 million in discounts. Premiums should drop about 7.5 percent. Article

> An emerging trade group for retail clinics has released its own set of quality and safety standards. …

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