By BARNABY J. FEDER NY TIMES Responding to criticism from surgeons, the government has dropped its previously announced plans to expand Medicare coverage for the use of stents to prop open neck arteries to prevent strokes. Instead, Medicare will stick with definitions that restrict eligibility for such stents to fewer than 10 percent of the […]

Associated Press http://www.chicagotribune.com WASHINGTON — Sens. Norm Coleman and Carl Levin are introducing legislation this week aimed at withholding payments for doctors and other health care providers who owe federal taxes but still receive government checks for treating Medicare patients. The bill comes following a congressional investigation which estimated in March that 21,000 physicians and […]

By Molly Albertson Cape Gazette staff http://www.capegazette.com State officials say midwives could be a part of the solution to Delaware’s high infant-mortality rate, and new legislation regulating midwives will be considered in the House on Tuesday, May 8. In its 2006 report, the Delaware Healthy Mother and Infant Consortium called for better prenatal care, a […]

http://home.businesswire.com The Doctors Company, the nation’s leading physician-owned medical malpractice insurance carrier, is pleased to announce an average premium reduction of nearly 8 percent in Ohio beginning May 1, 2007 for new policyholders and July 1, 2007 for those renewing their coverage. “This rate reduction is further evidence of The Doctors Company’s commitment to Ohio […]

BY MIKE FITZGERALD News-Democrat http://www.belleville.com Metro-east physicians and hospital executives are nervously watching the progress of a legislative proposal to allow juries to award damages to plaintiffs for “grief, sorrow and mental anguish” in wrongful death cases. A bill setting up this new category of damage awards, in addition to the category already in place […]

By By DON JEPSEN for the Mail Tribune http://www.mailtribune.com State Sen. Alan Bates, D-Ashland, a physician, plans to offer an amendment to a bill subsidizing medical malpractice premiums that would continue to cover primary care and OB/GYN physicians in Ashland. This amendment and another that keeps Grants Pass doctors eligible for the subsidy program are […]

By MARY JO LAYTON STAFF WRITER http://www.northjersey.com If you want to see Ridgewood gynecologist Ruth J. Schulze, you’ll have to sign a contract promising never to sue her for malpractice. The veteran physician and a dozen other gynecologists in New Jersey require the contracts as a condition of treatment. Schulze sees it as the only […]

William I. Weston, J.D. Hollywood http://www.sun-sentinel.com In response to a letter about medical malpractice, the issue of malpractice claims is a bit more complex. First, many states tried mandatory arbitration and it worked well. I know because I was deeply involved as an arbitrator in one such program. However, it was the medical profession in […]

By JESSICA LONG San Diego Business Journal Staff Home Treating patients who speak little-to-no English costs individual physician practices on average $19,000 a year, according to a report released here last week. Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians, a national organization representing 120,000 internal medicine physicians, related subspecialists and medical students released that finding last week […]