Practice Management News

Most medical practices nationwide sponsor some type of qualified retirement plan (QRP), including 401(k)s, profit-sharing plans, defined benefit plans and hybrid plans. Most physicians do not realize that a growing area of liability for all businesses, including medical practices, relates to QRPs and how they are managed.

Using rapid influenza diagnostic tests for patients presenting with acute respiratory infections may lead clinicians to prescribe fewer unnecessary antibiotics, which could improve patient outcomes and decrease the threat of resistance, researchers found.

New guidelines for hand-washing in medical facilities, aimed at reducing health care- associated infections, focus on healthy skin and nails, as well as easy access to alcohol-based hand sanitizers and improved training.

Rhinoviruses and enteroviruses accounted for nearly three-quarters of viral detections among children during the COVID-19 pandemic and persisted amid declines in other viruses, researchers reported in JAMA Network Open.

There was a sustained decrease in pertussis cases among young infants in the years after maternal Tdap vaccination was introduced in the United States, according to the results of a CDC study published in JAMA Pediatrics.

People with HIV are seeing increasing rates of anal cancer. However, those screened for anal cancer precursors were diagnosed at an earlier disease stage than unscreened individuals, resulting in better survival odds.

Having a healthy lifestyle, particularly a healthy BMI and adequate sleep, before becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 helped stave off the development of long COVID, according to a prospective cohort study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

In the United States, there were more than 600 excess deaths among physicians from March 2020 to December 2021, according to a research letter published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Patients in the ICU with Clostridioides difficile colonization, histories of inflammatory bowel disease and longer ICU stays had an increased risk for developing C. difficile infection, according to a study in Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

Although roughly 77% of older adults globally have been vaccinated against COVID-19, researchers found wide disparities in vaccination rates based on income levels.