Gastro97262

Policy

In the last several years, there have been major changes in how we practice medicine. The number of regulations/new rules/new requirements that are being thrust on the physicians keeps increasing every day. It is becoming impossible to keep up with all the "training" videos, none of which pertain to patient ...

Pulmon09798

Policy

Maintenance of Certification (MOC) has become a pain in the rear for most physicians. Like everything else in life, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Several physicians feel this way about MOC too. Continuing Medical Education (CME) and re-certification by taking exams every 10 years may sound ...

OMFSurg46207

Policy

Lately, the healthcare administrators have acquired all the power in healthcare, they control the resources, they tell the physicians how to provide patient care and the hospital staff nowadays listens only to the administrators (and not the physicians). Yet, if there are any mishaps or adverse outcomes, physicians are the ...

Neuro09586

General Patient Interest

Lately, there has been lot of talk about growing epidemic of "opioid dependence". A particularly distressing aspect of this epidemic is because it seemed to have been fueled by prescriptions drugs. Aggressive marketing by drug companies that produce prescription narcotics has been cited as a major reason. In addition, "research" ...

Radiol11027

General Patient Interest

A frustrating element of patient care is when a physician orders a test or sevice and the patient's insurance company denies patient coverage. This poses several problems including the trust of the patient for his or her physicain. Who is to be trusted, the insurance company or the ordering physician? ...

Pulmon09798

Policy

In the marketplace, companies invest in advertising so that they can command a higher price for their product or service and/or generate a higher volume of business. One of the realities in our healthcare is that the payment for a service is fixed and hospitals cannot get a higher price ...

CTVS10483

Policy

I heard that the Trump administration wants to remove two existing regulations for every one new regulation that is introduced to make it easier for the businesses. I think it is a great idea. However, nowhere is this policy more needed than in healthcare. We physicians are drowning in the ...

OncSurg51524

Medical

There is plenty of published data about the bias in "research papers" based on drug company funded trials in favor of the company's products. A systematic bias like this would be a disqualifying criteria for any research paper submitted to any high quality journal, much less the prestigious ones such ...

Gastro97262

Policy

A recent LinkedIn post from a company specializing in a “service” that helps physicians appropriate more revenue from the new "Value-based Physician Reimbursement” system got me irritated and at the same time thinking about this in greater detail. This company’s product enabled physicians to look better to the payers and ...

Gastro97262

Policy

There has been a major push by the hospitals to hire physicians directly. This has definitely altered the healthcare landscape and incentives. A lot of physicians are vehemently opposed to being hired directly by the hospitals. Several others have embraced the 'inevitable' and have sold their practices to hospitals and ...