Opinion

New strides toward better care and spending can stir up plenty of blowback along the way, but CMS has shown a willingness to listen and adjust, this time by allowing ACOs to jump aboard the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) train – an initiative with the potential to impact up to 5,000 practices, 20,000 providers and 25 million patients.

An APM can potentially serve as an opportunity for a practice or organization to generate new ways to improve their patient’s care while simultaneously developing a means to promote financial viability in the new ‘value driven’ system.

With the ever-growing armamentarium of new therapies available today, a conversation about prescription drug costs with patients is rapidly becoming a reality for every physician.

A successful DPC model makes the current version of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) even more unworkable than it already is.

Unfortunately, for many physicians, the professional rewards of status, security, and meaningful work are threatened by an avalanche of responsibility and stress characterizing today’s practice environment and further contributing to an escalating epidemic of physician stress and burnout.

While the vast majority of our physician graders flunked Obamacare, many primary care physicians praise aspects of the Affordable Care Act.

Scientists at Oregon Health & Science University have found a way to reprogram immune cells to recognize and attack early HIV infection.

Telling stories about people like them, or reminding them of a previous illness may be the best thing physicians can do to nudge patients toward flu shots.

HIT coalition says the medical field must measure all forms of information sharing today so it can accurately assess interoperability successes moving forward.

A Mayo Clinic report reveals many physicians are dissatisfied with EHRs and patient portals, saying they improve neither their efficiency nor patient care.

As a physician, you can’t afford to go it alone with your finances.

There’s no doubt about the high level of distress that people across the nation are feeling about the rising costs of prescription drugs.

How did we end up with yet another layer added to our healthcare delivery system? It might be an unintended consequence of hospitalist programs.

EHR errors and MOC frustrations are the hot topics of this issue's Your Voice.

From booking to billing, control your overhead.

Physicians treating Medicare patients may get some relief this year from the reporting requirements under the Meaningful Use rules, thanks to a bill in both houses of Congress. But that relief is far from guaranteed.

Doctors and hospitals in the U.S. spend nearly $200 billion per year on medical devices, according to a 2015 study by the Advanced Medical Technology Association.

Projects such as OpenNotes may transform how physicians and patients use and access medical records.

Dr. Google often dispenses advice before appointments-here’s how to handle being the second opinion.

Physicians may have an opportunity to engage with patients via text messaging as smartphones become ubiquitous.

Doctors now can bill Medicare for transitional and chronic care managment, but not everyone will benefit.

the United States healthcare system is neither responsible for, nor is it the cause of, social disparities that have compromised the health and lives of so many people in our country, which unfortunately fall disproportionately on those who reside in our minority communities.

As I visit with providers, I discover managers that are not well educated in the HIPAA process, and do not understand they are required to do an annual Security Risk Audit and review of their practice even if they do not have an EMR, writes Carol Gibbons in her latest blog.

While practices are largely safe from paying monetary compensation to patients from a HIPAA violation, there are still threats outside of a courtroom.

A pair of new fact sheets can help physicians determine when patient authorization to share information is not needed in the interest of care coordination.

Lead researcher says economic impact of hepatitis C virus will increase unless action is taken now.

States had restricted Medicaid recipients’ access to drugs, but new court rulings are changing that practice.

With every passing summer day, the Zika virus alarm becomes more urgent in the United States, making it more important that physicians both address it and dispel rumors with their patients.

While transparency is viewed as important to reducing consumer health costs, little has been done to affect business-to-business relationships and confront pricing practices that are often variable and opaque.

As Medicare spending on hospice care has grown steadily in recent years-reaching $15.1 billion annually-the government has stepped up its regulatory scrutiny of hospice enrollment practices to make sure that only appropriate patients are being admitted.