As patients, as family members, as friends, as health care providers, we have all faced end-of-life issues at one time or another, and we will face them again. And again. This weekend, the "Engage With Grace" message is being broadcast virally, through a "blog rally," at a time when many people are with family and […]
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Health Care Reform: What Price Progress?
There's a lot of breast-beating going on out there regarding recent "shocking" behavior by many health care provider organizations. Believe it or not, all across the nation, health care providers are seeking to affiliate/acquire/be acquired in the hopes of creating more efficient, more comprehensive provider networks, which can survive and flourish under new reimbursement regimes […]
David Harlow Keynotes on Health Care Social Media and the Law at Annual Healthcare and the Internet Conference
I attended the 14th Annual Healthcare and the Internet Conference in Las Vegas this week, and gave a keynote presentation entitled: “Health Care Social Media – The Lawyers Don’t Always Say No” in which I discussed the reasons for health care providers to engage with their constituencies via social media — both from a business […]
2011 MPFS and 2011 HOPPS & ASC fee schedules finalized by CMS
The final Medicare physician fee schedule, Hospital Outpatient PPS and Ambulatory Surgery Center fee schedules for 2011 were released by CMS last week. They will be formally published in the Federal Register later this month. As usual, the fee schedules include a fair number of regulatory amendments that are not, strictly speaking, fee schedules, which […]
Social Media Policy Adopted by the American Medical Association
Earlier this month, the AMA announced that it has adopted a social media policy at its mid-year meeting. It will soon be posted on the AMA website; the full text, provided to HealthBlawg by AMA staff, is set forth at the end of this post. The key to understanding the AMA perspective lies in the […]
OIG Issues "Roadmap for New Physicians" – A Guide to Avoiding Fraud and Abuse – and Some Thoughts on its Context
In October, the Office of Inspector General issued a report on Fraud and Abuse Training in Medical Education, finding that 44% of medical schools reported giving some instruction in the anti-kickback statute and related laws, even though they weren't legally required to do so. (As an aside, do we really live in such a nanny […]