Practice Management News

ORLANDO — In this exclusive video from the World Congress of Gastroenterology at ACG 2017, ACG Public Relations Committee Chair Jordan J. Karlitz, MD, FACG, discusses how telemedicine is changing gastroenterology.

Opioid abuse is taking a catastrophic toll, with recent CDC data attributing 91 deaths a day to the epidemic. Further, in 2015, 63% of the 52,404 drug overdose deaths involved heroin and opioid pain reliever medications.

Two senators have struck a bipartisan deal to temporarily preserve subsidies for health insurance companies set to be scrapped by President Donald J. Trump, The New York Times reports.

ORLANDO — In this exclusive video from the World Congress of Gastroenterology at ACG 2017, ACG President-Elect Irving M. Pike, MD, FACG, senior vice president and chief medical office for John Muir Health, discusses his vision for the College in the upcoming year.

ORLANDO — A survey of more than 700 gastroenterologists revealed that nearly half experienced burnout, and that work-life balance drives it more often than practice-related issues.

California Gov. Jerry Brown approved legislation that will require pharmaceutical companies to give the state advanced notice of, as well as justify, dramatic drug price increases.

As a physician, you have a unique ability to make the delivery of health care more efficient and save hospitals money, which ultimately has the effect of lowering health care costs. This is true whether you are in independent practice or employed by a hospital. While the Stark law, antikickback statute and other laws place some restrictions on payments from a hospital to a physician, it is crystal clear that with some relatively simple planning, a hospital can compensate physicians for their effort to save money. While the labelling of these payments may differ (sometimes these are referred to as gainsharing arrangements, though I prefer co-management or gainsharing), the basic idea is the hospital is paying the physician for his or her assistance in improving the economic efficiency of the hospital.

ORLANDO — In this exclusive video from the World Congress of Gastroenterology at ACG 2017, Kenneth Brown, MD, of Digestive Health Associates of Texas in Plano, TX, discusses the importance of online reputation management for physicians.

ORLANDO — In his address to the World Congress of Gastroenterology at ACG 2017, World Gastroenterology Organization President David J. Bjorkman, MD, MSPH, FACG, called for global collaboration to address future challenges in gastroenterology, and to deliver quality care to developing countries with limited resources.

High-cost frail elderly individuals accounted for 44% of total potentially preventable Medicare spending, despite only comprising 4% of the Medicare population, according to findings published in Annals of Internal Medicine.