Contract Language. By Steven M. Harris, AMNews contributor. http://www.ama-assn.org It seems as if every other call I receive these days is from a client telling me about a complaint charging his medical practice with some form of discrimination. And with that complaint often comes a claim of retaliation — that the employee who felt discriminated […]

By Margaret Leroux http://wbjournal.com This coming year will see Massachusetts’ ground-breaking health care program emerge from legislation to reality. Last October, the new insurance program, Commonwealth Care, began enrolling adults with incomes below the federal poverty line of $9,800; in January it will open for adults with incomes up to three times the federal poverty […]

By MICHELLE M. SMITH GHM Group http://www.reviewatlas.com Dr. Jeffrey Baumgardner is a man who has learned to accept the challenges of life as opportunities for growth and change. The physician recently opened his office at 940 North Henderson Street and is looking forward to providing total healthcare for women, which will include obstetrics, gynecology, and […]

http://biz.yahoo.com OTN, a leading physician practice services company and one of the largest distributors of products and services to the community physician market, announced today that Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of Wellesley, Mass., has included OTN’s national specialty pharmacy, ivpcare, in its managed specialty pharmacy program in the therapeutic areas of fertility, hepatitis C, multiple […]

Star Tribune http://www.dfw.com Here’s what you need to know about the American Tort Reform Association’s recent “Judicial Hellholes” report complaining about egregious bias against corporate defendants in civil litigation. In one breath, the report defines “judicial hellholes” as places where judges “systematically” apply laws and court procedures in an “unfair and unbalanced manner.” But the […]

By Lisa Girion, Times Staff Writer http://www.latimes.com California’s largest physician organization on Tuesday asked to join patients in a class-action lawsuit alleging that Blue Cross illegally dumps policyholders after authorizing expensive medical treatment and then refuses to pay the bills. The request by the California Medical Assn. came a week after the state’s hospitals filed […]

http://www.nytimes.com Should doctors be paid in accord with how often they treat you or how well they treat you? The answer presumably is a bit of both. Yet the current fee-for-service reimbursement systems used by Medicare and other insurance programs perversely reward doctors for the volume of services they provide and pay little or no […]

http://www.muskogeephoenix.com Good for the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The high court struck down as unconstitutional a 2003 provision that requires patients to get a medical expert to sign an affidavit that their lawsuit has merit before they can proceed with a medical malpractice lawsuit. Legislators approved the law to prevent frivolous lawsuits, something we’ve heard a […]

Illinois doctors’ insurance rates actually drop BY JIM RITTER Health Reporter http://www.suntimes.com Illinois doctors are getting some relief from medical-malpractice insurance premiums that can top $100,000. ISMIE Mutual, the state’s largest malpractice insurer, says premiums dropped an average of 5.2 percent this year and likely will hold steady or drop again next year. But the […]