http://today.reuters.com A slight drop in the rate of women getting mammograms in the United States is worrying, and might suggest it is becoming difficult to get one, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Thursday. CDC researchers found that while 76.4 percent of women over 40 got mammograms in 2000, just 74.6 percent […]

http://www.kaisernetwork.org/ The American College of Physicians on Monday proposed revisions to the U.S. health care system that would pay primary care physicians based on their coordination of care for patients, CQ HealthBeat reports. Under the proposal, to qualify for “patient-centered care” payments, physician practices would have to show an accrediting organization that they have systems […]

Daniel Klass, M.D., C.M. The New England Journal of Medicine http://content.nejm.org/ A fair amount of scrutiny has been given recently to the assessment of medical students’ competence before they enter practice. In this issue of the Journal, Epstein provides a timely summary of advances in this arena.1 In contrast, little attention has been paid to […]

By BRETT BRUNE Houston Chronicle Dr. Swarna Balasubramaniam is an experienced surgeon hired by Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, which graded her as an “A candidate” for her top-tier surgical training, bright personality and practice-building acumen. But the Mayo Medical School graduate, who applied five months ago for a Texas medical license, is still waiting for permission to […]

By Bruce Japsen Tribune staff reporter http://www.chicagotribune.com An outcry over ads nudging consumers to ask their doctors for purple pills, depression remedies or other brand-name prescription drugs hasn’t stopped an escalation of direct-to-consumer marketing in health care. In fact, as spending on such ads continues to climb, a new television commercial has introduced an entirely […]

http://www.prnewswire.com Commercial insurance premiums continued their decline in all but catastrophe-exposed areas during the fourth quarter of 2006, with insurers willing to lower prices and place fewer restrictions on coverage to get new business, according to the latest market survey by The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers. “There is no underwriting,” a broker from […]

David McCann prepares physicians to respond when tragedy strikes By Rebecca Pollard Pierik http://www.umassmag.com

The Insurance professionals only source for News MphasiS Healthcare Solutions (MHS), a provider of health benefit management and business process outsourcing (BPO) services, announced today that it has entered into a three-year agreement with Resolve Health Plan Administrators, LLC (“Resolve”), based in Ormond Beach, Fla. Resolve is a third-party administrator (TPA) which provides claims management […]

http://healthcare-economist.com Today, I will review an interesting article by Glied and Zivin (2002) examining how physicians adjust their practice style when the HMO share of patients changes (note: the authors implicitly assume all HMOs pay physicians via capitation). First we will look at the three theoretical models the authors develop. Models 1. Excess capacity model. […]