http://biz.yahoo.com OTN, a leading physician practice services company and one of the largest distributors of products and services to the community physician market, announced today that Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of Wellesley, Mass., has included OTN’s national specialty pharmacy, ivpcare, in its managed specialty pharmacy program in the therapeutic areas of fertility, hepatitis C, multiple […]

Star Tribune http://www.dfw.com Here’s what you need to know about the American Tort Reform Association’s recent “Judicial Hellholes” report complaining about egregious bias against corporate defendants in civil litigation. In one breath, the report defines “judicial hellholes” as places where judges “systematically” apply laws and court procedures in an “unfair and unbalanced manner.” But the […]

By Lisa Girion, Times Staff Writer http://www.latimes.com California’s largest physician organization on Tuesday asked to join patients in a class-action lawsuit alleging that Blue Cross illegally dumps policyholders after authorizing expensive medical treatment and then refuses to pay the bills. The request by the California Medical Assn. came a week after the state’s hospitals filed […]

http://www.nytimes.com Should doctors be paid in accord with how often they treat you or how well they treat you? The answer presumably is a bit of both. Yet the current fee-for-service reimbursement systems used by Medicare and other insurance programs perversely reward doctors for the volume of services they provide and pay little or no […]

http://www.muskogeephoenix.com Good for the Oklahoma Supreme Court. The high court struck down as unconstitutional a 2003 provision that requires patients to get a medical expert to sign an affidavit that their lawsuit has merit before they can proceed with a medical malpractice lawsuit. Legislators approved the law to prevent frivolous lawsuits, something we’ve heard a […]

Illinois doctors’ insurance rates actually drop BY JIM RITTER Health Reporter http://www.suntimes.com Illinois doctors are getting some relief from medical-malpractice insurance premiums that can top $100,000. ISMIE Mutual, the state’s largest malpractice insurer, says premiums dropped an average of 5.2 percent this year and likely will hold steady or drop again next year. But the […]

by joetalarico http://www.mydd.com Not a whole lot new has happened, which gives me the opportunity to do what I like best. Having been accurately depicted by George Will as a narcissist who believes that people actually care about my ramblings, I will ramble on, today about tort reform. Being an anesthesiologist for almost 20 years, […]

Posted by Mark Hathaway, Human Resource Advisory Department http://blog.laborlawcenter.com That Governor Rod R. Blagojevich didn’t stop at just reforming the Prevailing Wage Act or the workers’ comp system in Illinois. He and the state legislator, as well as business leaders and union organization leaders in the state of Illinois has sought to also change how […]

http://www.newschannel5.com/ NASHVILLE, Tenn. Most medical malpractice claims closed in Tennessee last year resulted in no payment of damages to patients and their families. That’s according to a recent report by the Department of Commerce and Insurance.In 2004, the Legislature passed a law requiring the department to issue annual reports on medical malpractice for the years […]