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Starting Jan. 1, 2010, you will have a new opportunity to accumulate wealth in a tax-free piggy bank.

Investors should consider obtaining a qualified second opinion when concerned about "bleeding" of portfolio values due to market losses.

HSAs are a tax-free, interest-bearing investment tool in which funds deposited can be spent only on qualified health services.

As healthcare enters a critical stage, Medical Economics will continue to provide information on practice management, patient care and personal and professional finances.

Several entities will receive more than $90 million in funds from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for efforts involving electronic health records (EHRs) or informatics it was recently announced.

Merck & Co. has released iPhone applications for the professional and consumer editions of its Merck Manual.

Microsoft has launched a new Web site, www.h1n1responsecenter.com, with a self-assessment tool to help individuals with flu-like symptoms determine whether their illness is severe enough to warrant immediate medical attention, and whether they are at risk for developing severe disease. The site also offers practical advice for those with flu-like symptoms.

After a successful pilot program in the Seattle area, a website that matches cash-paying patients to healthcare providers is slated to launch nationwide on November 2.

Patients are willing to use e-mail and physicians' websites to communicate with their doctors in an effort to save time, as long as they do not have to pay for the ability.

Pfizer allegedly promoted four drugs for off-label indications and caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs for uses that were not medically accepted indications and therefore not covered by those programs.

A look at state legislation affecting primary care doctors.

The hospitalist career path is among medicine's fastest growing specialties.

The Department of Health and Human Services will join state multi-payer patient-centered medical home demonstration programs next year as a payer.

Too much available credit can hurt your credit score.

Deciding on a traditional versus Roth IRA calls into consideration several factors, including tax rates.

Meditation and experience sharing may improve mood and lower feelings of burnout, according to a study in JAMA.

Retail health clinics provide care for routine illnesses at a lower cost and similar quality as offered in physician offices, urgent care centers or emergency departments, according to a new study.

Staff overtime can cost practices thousands of dollars yearly. Learn how to control overtime.

A rule proposed in the health reform legislation would allow health insurers to sell plans across state lines.

While primary care physicians, by and large, worked as much in 2008 as they did the previous year, the number of patients seen increased just marginally, according to Medical Economics' annual productivity survey.

It may be time in the profession to value quality over quantity.

The Department of Health and Human Services will join state multi-payer patient-centered medical home demonstration programs next year as a payer.

Exceptions that permit referrals under Stark are complex, therefore determining a violation has happened and the preferred way of managing are also difficult.

Alfred J. Maher, MD, differs from most hospital physicians in that he didn't begin working as a hospitalist soon after residency.

As you prepare to start a new job, read your employment contract carefully, make sure you understand all of its provisions, and, if necessary, let a lawyer have a peek.

The Society of Hospital Medicine's most recent bi-annual survey, which covers 2007-2008, indicates that hospitalists are young (the mean age is 40) and almost two-thirds (65 percent) are male.

With the rapid and sustained growth of the hospitalist movement, cooperation between teams of physicians becomes even more critical.

Whether just done with residency, an experienced hospitalist seeking new work, or a private practice physician transitioning to hospitalist work, a job hunt, at the outset, is an exercise in information-gathering.

More than 140,000 (23 percent) of all office-based physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants in the U.S. are now using electronic prescribing, according to Surescripts. At the current pace, the company projects, the total number of health care professionals prescribing medication electronically via its network this year will more than double from the 74,000 active electronic prescribers who used it at the end of last year.

Users of Google Health who have scheduled telehealth consultations with physicians or mental health therapists via MDLiveCare will be able to share medical records with their doctors before the appointments and receive records from the doctors after the appointments, thanks to a new collaboration between the two companies.