Physician shortage. Important patient care need. Physicians seeking work-life balance or an alternative to retirement. All of these are reasons locum tenens practitioners are becoming more popular. Using these "placeholder" practitioners can be a great option, as long as you...
In last month's Medical Staff Briefing, we discussed CMS' February 17, 2012, memorandum wherein new guidance language was provided in regard to a change to the Conditions of Participation and Interpretative Guidelines under Transmittal 72. The memorandum outlined...
On September 25, the State of Minnesota District Court, Fifth Judicial District issued a ruling on the legal effect of medical staff bylaws. The court ruled that although medical staff bylaws do not constitute a binding contract between the hospital and the medical staff, a...
It was in July 2010 that Medical Staff Briefing first reported on the American Medical Informatics Association's (AMIA) efforts to make clinical informatics a subspecialty. In November, AMIA announced at its annual symposium that qualifying physicians will be able to take a...
In October, CMS started dinging hospitals for what it considers excessive readmission rates. Some top-ranked hospitals, such as Massachusetts General Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y., will have to...
In 2007, a bill was passed amending California's whistleblower statute extending the rights previously granted to nonphysician staff members to include physicians as well. The amendment allowed physicians that brought forth patient safety complaints to sue the hospital for...
In July it was revealed that two New Mexico surgeons were involved in nearly 80 malpractice lawsuits after performing back surgeries that only one of the surgeons was qualified to perform.
For many physicians, their first experience with the state medical board is filling out paperwork, popping it in the mail, and waiting patiently for their licenses to be delivered in return. If a physician has a second experience with the medical board, it is usually for a...
Each year new technology emerges that changes the way physicians and surgeons perform procedures. The use of cutting-edge equipment has increased the quality of patient care by allowing more procedures to be done with minimally invasive techniques, and made previously complex or...
According to the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), disciplinary actions against physicians have risen 6.8% nationwide. The number of prejudicial actions (including license suspensions, revocations, and probations) rose 4.1%, from 4,798 in 2010 to 4,996 in 2011, while...
