By DAVID ARMSTRONG http://online.wsj.com/ A former Pfizer Inc. official in a lawsuit accused the company of illegally boosting sales of its top-selling drug Lipitor through an elaborate campaign of misleading educational programs for doctors. Jesse Polansky, claims that the educational campaign was a key part of a marketing strategy that “led thousands of physicians to […]

Author: Martha Lagace http://hbswk.hbs.edu What used to be rare is now commonplace: traveling abroad to receive medical treatment, and to a developing country at that. So-called medical tourism is on the rise for everything from cardiac care to plastic surgery to hip and knee replacements. As a recent Harvard Business School case study describes, the […]

http://news.yahoo.com/ Reuters Doctors should defer giving booster shots of a widely used childhood vaccine in the wake of a voluntary recall last week of 1.2 million doses by Merck & Co Inc, U.S. health authorities said on Wednesday. Merck recalled its vaccine against Hib disease (Haemophilus influenzae type b) after quality-control checks found production equipment […]

CEO’s college pal funds executive chair Barb Galbincea Plain Dealer Reporter A $5 million donation to the Cleveland Clinic is aimed at supporting continued innovation in health care and saying thank you to a friend. The money is from Buffalo businessman Robert Rich Jr. and his wife, Mindy, also a company executive. Robert Rich was […]

By Liz Welter Marshfield News-Herald http://www.wausaudailyherald.com Not many small towns can support a medical practice. Athens, with a population of about 1,000, now has two. After working for 10 years as the physician at the Marshfield Clinic Athens Center, Dr. Vinoo Cameron on Aug. 2 opened Hope Clinic just across the street. The Internet, computers […]

Bill has a number of provisions impacting Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP Late yesterday the Senate passed on a voice vote the Medicare reform legislation from the Finance Committee. The summary of Medicare provisions in the legislation being considered today in the House was released just yesterday by the Senate Finance Committee. The lead provision, which […]

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer yahoo.com Physicians will get a six-month reprieve from a 10 percent rate cut when treating Medicare patients under legislation that passed the Senate on Tuesday. The pay cut for doctors had been scheduled to take effect Jan. 1. Doctors had warned that a cut in reimbursement rates would lead […]

http://www.healthimaging.com One of the objections to the implementation of speech recognition software in a radiology practice is that it generates more errors than traditional transcription methods. According to a scientific presentation at the 93rd scientific assembly and annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), the opposite is true: transcribed reports show higher […]

By REED ABELSON http://www.nytimes.com Acknowledging that too many people simply cannot obtain health insurance on their own, the insurance industry plans on Wednesday to propose a series of steps the companies say would let more individuals, even those who have health problems, obtain coverage. The proposals, approved by a board of the industry’s main trade […]