Officials at AARP New Jersey, to help seniors make educated decisions for the care, are pushing for the state Department of Health and Senior Services to provide detailed information about healthcare facilities that have reported serious harm or death due to medical errors. The agency puts out a Patient Safety Initiative Report annually, and currently only lists preventable medical errors.
A recent study found that surviving cancer can depend on location and even race. Researchers say that the country you live in, and in the United States, whether you're black or white, determines a person's odds for beating the disease. Among reasons cited for the findings were economic differences and access to healthcare.
While trolling the Facebook pages of the school's medical students,
University of Florida researchers found shots of future doctors grabbing their breasts and crotches or posing with a dead animal. They also found many photos of students drinking heavily.
The study also found that almost half of medical students had Facebook pages, but only 37% of those students limited viewership to friends.
This New York Times op-ed offers an analysis of the flaws in our current fee-for-service reimbursement system by contrasting the profitability of a CT scan to a standard patient visit. "The best way for a doctor to make money in his practice is not to spend time with patients but to use equipment as much as possible," says Peter B. Bach, MD, a doctor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "That means moving the maximum number of patients through the practice, and spending the minimum amount of time with each one."
A new survey by Press Ganey finds that physicians practicing in rural areas tend to be more satisfied overall than their urban counterparts. The survey also found that surgeons and critical care specialists are the least satisfied medical staff, while pathologists and rehabilitation specialists are most satisfied.
As an increasing share of healthcare costs has been shifted by employers to their employees, copays and deductibles have gone up substantially. This increase has left providers with a significant amount of outstanding self-pay revenue to collect.
One effective method of capturing outstanding self-pay balances is to designate one of the billing staff members to provide financial counseling to patients. This person would meet with patients who have outstanding bills and establish a payment plan that would fit into their budget.
For example, if an uninsured patient has an office visit but cannot pay the entire charge for the day, the patient might ask to pay a portion before he or she leaves the office and then pay additional installments by mail for the remainder of the bill.
Practices such as surgery or OB/GYN, in which self-pay balances tend to be high after the insurance company has paid its portion of the bill, may also reap the benefits of having a financial counselor.
For example, if a patient is scheduled for a major surgery, the financial counselor may call the patient’s third-party payer to determine the patient’s responsibility after the insurance has paid its portion of the service.
If the patient is responsible for 30% of the allowable, he or she should be aware of the amount that will be owed after the insurance company has paid its share. Once the insurance company sends the payment with the EOB, the financial counselor will want to set up a payment plan with the patient.
This article was adapted from one that originally ran in The Doctor's Office, a HealthLeaders Media publication.