Practice Management

A better future for primary care is right in front of us if we have the courage to change, and indeed we must change.

If patient information is stolen, practices must notify the affected patients and, in some cases, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and local media, according to new regulations that go into effect on September 23.

Nearly half of physicians believe that various off-label uses of prescription drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration, according to a national survey.

Efforts to thwart the increasing costs of healthcare cannot succeed without addressing the question of how much care to provide the terminally ill.

What statistics do I really need to track in my practice?

Our physicians don't want to report code 90465 when children under 8 years of age are vaccinated, because they do not provide any counseling.

A rough year for the U.S. economy had little negative impact on the income of physicians, according to the results of Medical Economics' 2009 Exclusive Survey.

What statistics do I really need to track in my practice?

The methodology and numbers behind Medical Economics' 2009 Exclusive Survey

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have released a new fact sheet outlining the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases, 10th edition.

Insurers are signing on to support new chronic care patient education delivery systems that incorporate web-based and electronic technologies.

Consider a referral to a mental health provider for patients who remain nonadherent to therapy or lifestyle changes even after extensive patient education efforts.

The art of medicine can be as pivotal as the science of medicine when it comes to managing the treatment regimens of patients with cardiometabolic disorders.

Superbills, encounter forms, and EOBs are not considered primary records and can be destroyed after they are input into the billing system.

No code has been assigned to report the administration of the upcoming H1N1 vaccine or the vaccine itself. Codes will likely be assigned around October 1.

For the first time, 17 of Advanstar Communications' Life Sciences publications and its web portal, ModernMedicine.com, are collaborating in a coordinated, interdisciplinary initiative to address a major public health issue: cardiometabolic disorders and weight.

The Stark law is relevant only in situations that involve a specific set of health services and patients who use Medicare.

Although Medicare is expected to offer a financial hardship exemption from electronic health records, the agency has offered scant details so far.

Over the many years of my medical practice, it has repeatedly occurred to me that we might be better caregivers if we had a more visceral rather than purely intellectual understanding of what our patients are experiencing.

Adults in the United States spent $33.9 billion out-of-pocket on visits to "complementary and alternative medicine" practitioners and purchases of alternative health products in 2007.

Eli Lilly and Co. has launched an online registry detailing recent payments the drugmaker awarded to physicians and other healthcare professionals.

A new tool to help treat cardiometabolic conditions with greater certainty is ready to be tested in a practice environment.

Beginning this issue and continuing through November, Medical Economics will deliver "Cardiometabolic Disorders & Weight: Action for Outcomes," a series of in-depth coverage designed to help you manage your patients' disorders more effectively.

Most states do not outline or limit the reasons a physician can terminate that relationship, which gives the physician considerable discretion to determine the reasons he or she might do so.

Physicians need to update the information related to their own NPI numbers. Failure to do so could result in not being paid for some services.

Starting next year, about 25,000 patients will be able to see all the encounter notes from their primary care physicians on an online personal health record for the duration of a 12-month study.

Testing of a hand hygiene program using infrared and radio frequency identification technology to capture and time-stamp hand washings is underway at a Miami hospital.

Universal coverage could clog the healthcare system unless new care-delivery models are created, such as telehealth and online doctor appointments, according to a recent survey.

EHR adoption has decreased in hospitals in states where privacy laws restrict the ability to disclose patient information, according to a study published in the journal Management Science.

The use of pen-and-paper workarounds in conjunction with electronic health records could boost overall efficiency, according to a new study.