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Reimbursement cuts to Medicare have become an annual event. Since 2001, Medicare payment to physicians has fallen by 29%, and there's another 2.8% cut proposed for 2025, according to the [...]

The population is aging, the demand for medical services is increasing and the need for skilled physicians has never been higher. Across specialties and regions, job openings for physicians are [...]

Risk is always a part of practicing medicine, and 2024 has no shortage of challenges practices must face to succeed. Medical Economics spoke with Peter Reilly, North American health care [...]

Medical practices and health care facilities are a preferred target of hackers because of the amount of personal information contained in medical records. These records can be taken hostage via [...]

The days of independent primary care practices, once a bedrock in the communities they served, are rapidly fading. Like many aspects of the health care industry in the United States, [...]

When it comes to the burdens facing medical practices, the challenges are many and varied. To make matters worse, many of the biggest problems are interconnected: Regulatory compliance and the [...]

Although most employees had wage gains in 2023 in the range of 4% with about the same increase projected for 2024, physicians, for the most part, have seen nothing but [...]

What will the world of medicine look like in 2123? Although we can't know for sure, it's obvious that the pace of change--mainly driven by technological advances--is accelerating and patients [...]

Talk of AI dominated the health conference, but there were plenty of other featured technology innovations and strategies The annual Healthcare Information Management Systems Society Global Health Conference & Exhibition [...]

The chief medical officer for Amazon Pharmacy talks about consolidation, burnout, and what Amazon's entry into health care means for doctors. Vin Gupta, MD, MPA, a pulmonologist and Air Force [...]

Rent is up. Labor costs are up. Supply costs have increased. Patients want more attention and convenience than ever. Yet through it all, your practice has continued to deliver great [...]

First came inflation, with even the cost of basic office supplies eating into profit margins that were already thin. This was followed by staffing shortages that further drove up payroll [...]

A study led by a multi-institutional team of researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine, Duke University, Ally Bank, the University of Oxford, Columbia University and [...]

The American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) will tell you that nurse practitioners (NPs) are qualified to handle primary care. They point to a long history of successfully caring for [...]

Primary care is all about taking care of patients and trying to keep them healthy through prevention and early detection. But who is qualified to provide primary care and who [...]

Who is in charge of primary care? Many primary care physicians might say they are. After all, they have spent years building relationships with patients, sometimes treating multiple generations of [...]

You know you are ready for a different position, possibly in another state, but with the hours you are working, who has time to look? How will you know if [...]

Inflation is at its highest point in decades, and interest rates are on the rise. For many investors this type of environment is unknown after years of low rates and [...]

Value-based care is becoming increasingly popular with payers because it reimburses for outcomes rather than services, putting a greater focus on the long-term health of the insured. Physicians have been [...]

The health care landscape has witnessed a dynamic surge in mergers and acquisitions during the first quarter of 2024, marking a substantial uptick in activity and setting a robust tone [...]

Being a primary care physician isn't the most enticing job right now. The average salary is six figures below that of most specialists, according to Medical Economics[R] survey data, yet [...]

Selling a successful practice and cashing in on a lifetime of hard work is what many practice owners envision. But there is far more to the transaction than just cashing [...]

Need a mortgage approved to buy a $400,000 house in less than an hour? Done. Want specialty pet food delivered to your door by tomorrow? No problem. Moving money between [...]

While physicians worked to keep their practices financially afloat and dealt with COVID-19, hackers kept busy, too. From January-through October of last year, there were 730 publicly disclosed security breaches [...]

The United States was short on doctors before COVID-19. The pandemic put massive strain on the entire health care system, pushing physicians to their limits as they try to care [...]

When the COVID-19 crisis hit, telehealth was forced to the forefront when many primary care physicians closed their doors to in-patient visits due to safety concerns. As both patients and [...]

Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Gabe Charbonneau, M.D., a family doctor in Stevensville, Montana, completed a shift at an urgent care facility that was serving as the local COVID-19 [...]

When it comes to top physician frustrations, prior authorizations rank near the top of the list, right next to poorly designed EHRs. Jack Resneck M.D., a dermatologist and immediate past [...]

Any talk about cybersecurity in healthcare will undoubtedly cover one or more of a hacker's favorite tactics: Ransomware, phishing, or exploiting poor device security. While none of these threats are [...]

Competition is increasing, and reimbursements are decreasing. Every dollar counts for most medical practices, yet many physicians have fallen into bad business habits that are costing them money. Patients and [...]

A survey on artificial intelligence (Ai)-powered chatbots-such as ChatGPT-showed that both patients and health care professionals see the technology as having the potential to improve care and reduce costs. The [...]

Nobody likes turning patients over to collections. But for a practice to survive, it's imperative that a practice collect the money it is owed so it can keep the doors [...]

Physician burnout in recent years has gone from a taboo topic to one of great concern in the health care industry. In the past, doctors would avoid even talking about [...]

Physicians often finish their education burdened with a debt load that can reach six figures. But they also start their professional careers years behind their colleagues in nonmedical fields when [...]

What's the difference between a highly successful practice and one that just gets by? Oftentimes, it comes down to focusing on a handful of key financial details. Physicians who institute [...]

Reimbursement for independent physicians is getting more challenging each year. Between the ever-changing reporting requirements from CMS and contractual differences among commercial payers, just keeping up can be a full-time [...]

When it comes to buying medical practices, hospitals and health systems aren't the only ones writing checks. In recent years, the number of private equity firms looking to purchase practices [...]

Thomas H. Lee, MD, has been Press Ganey's chief medical officer since 2013, and is an internist and cardiologist, practicing primary care at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. As [...]

Malpractice costs have been relatively stable in recent years, but the healthcare industry is changing. Consolidation among hospitals, health plans and provider groups has left insurers fighting for fewer customers, [...]

Value-based care has created a conundrum: pretty much everyone in healthcare likes the idea of paying for outcomes, but no one is sure how to fairly implement it. The Medicare [...]

There's a growing consumer force making its presence known in medicine: convenience. In the past, a practice could offer a handful of Saturday appointments and that was about the only [...]

Right now, medical practices are being attacked by cybercriminals. Emails are being sent in the hope a practice employee will click on a link that will install ransomware, hackers are exploiting security flaws in medical equipment with internet connections, and information is being gathered from social media to trick staffers into revealing patient or financial records., The sophistication and volume of attacks is increasing, according to cybersecurity experts, and practices have to be more vigilant than ever to protect themselves, even if at times it seems [...]

The challenges to sustaining a successful medical practice are numerous--declining reimbursements, government regulations, and third-party interference, among others, all play a role. But even in the face of these obstacles, [...]

IT experts talk about interoperability in terms of great progress, new opportunities, and advances in patient care. With doctors, the same topic tends to generate eyerolls, skepticism, and even fear--fear [...]

Patient anxiety about seeing a doctor is getting worse. Results of a survey from PatientPoint and OnePoll showed that nearly half (48%) of Americans say they feel anxious before a [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a lot of unknowns into the practice of medicine. Doctors are already dealing with diagnosing and treating people affected by the deadly virus while trying [...]

Physicians who have spent most of their working life building a practice often have no clue how much their business is worth. This lack of knowledge can affect retirement planning, [...]

When the COVID-19 pandemic started to sweep through the United States, primary care physicians saw the number of office visits either dramatically drop or cease all together. Between lockdowns that [...]