specialists

They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. A group of Connecticut physicians is suing two of the state's health plans, claiming the plans are pushing patients to go with so-called... Read more...

Making sure uninsured citizens get health coverage sounds good--but it won't work if physicians aren't on board. And it looks like that's a real hurdle for Commonwealth Care, the new insurance-for-all plan offered by the state of Massachusetts.

Primary care physicians aren't thrilled with the requirements for participating in Commonwealth Care products, which include making sure a patient has a first appointment within 45 days and is seen within 48 hours for urgent-care …

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What was true in the past continues to be true: doctors can make big bucks. According to Forbes magazine, anesthesiologists have the highest wages in the U.S., a mean annual income $184,340 per year. That's a 5.8 percent increase over last year. Coming in at a close second were surgeons, at a mean annual income of $184,150 per year. They too saw a pay increase from last year, in this case 3.6 percent. Other leaders were OB/GYNs ($178,040), orthodontists ($176,900), oral surgeons …

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Hospitals are continuing to struggle with the problem of attracting specialists willing to work on call. Increasingly, physicians are refusing to take up on-call duties, concerned, among other things, about their malpractice exposure. But despite the obstacles, hospitals have a few tricks up their sleeve. Article

Often, patients get conflicting advice from the different specialists they see, in part due to competition for business. This is particularly common among specialties like cardiology, vascular surgery, cardiac surgery and neurology, where the lines between specialties have begun to blur. To sidestep this issue, some specialists are forming groups that serve the hospital jointly, with guidelines requiring all physicians to work as a team. Not only does this improve collaboration between …

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After years of obscurity, palliative medicine is on the upswing, gaining new respect from hospitals and physicians. Growing numbers of medical centers offer palliative services, which focus on relieving symptoms and boosting quality of life for seriously ill patients. According to the Center to Advance Palliative Care, the number of medical centers offering palliative medicine has …

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This is an interesting time to be a hospital executive--and a turning point in the business. New business models are popping up every six months, a fevered pace more akin to Silicon Valley than the staid halls of …

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A group of Massachusetts hospitals have started paying some specialist doctors for on-call emergency department shifts, potentially shifting the traditional balance of power between the facilities... Read more...

While most physicians provide care that falls within established guidelines, about one in ten provided more services than patients needed, according to a GAO study of recent Medicare data. The researchers found that inefficient physicians accounted for 10 percent of the primary care physician population and 2 to 6 percent of specialists.

To establish the efficiency measures, GAO researchers looked at the physician profiling systems used by 10 health care purchasing organizations. …

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> Another front in the battle that never ends. Venture County (Calif.) specialists, like their peers elsewhere in the country, are fighting for on-call pay. Article

> A consultant offers a detailed financial analysis designed to help physicians decide whether a concierge practice makes sense for them. …

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