Legal & Regulatory Issues

In response to the Becker’s Hospital Review report, “Wall Street Journal: After Making a Deal on Healthcare Reform, AMA Still Can’t Get to Permanent Fee-Fix,” a comment attributed to American Medical Association President Cecil B. Wilson, MD, read as the…

A new bipartisan Senate bill would allow states to opt out of key parts of the healthcare reform law, such as the individual mandate, three years earlier than the law now allows, according to a report by the Hill.

CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, MD, called for removal of the current physician payment formula in his first appearance before Congress, according to a report by AHA News Now.

A week after President Obama's Deficit Commission issued its draft proposal, another bipartisan panel released its own recommendations, including substantially raising Medicare charges for beneficiaries.

The growing movement to repeal all or parts of the healthcare reform law is raising hopes that the law's ban on physician-owned hospitals could be removed, but an industry leader says it could take months to pass such legislation.

Republicans, still a minority in the Senate following the midterm election, plan to forge a Senate majority against the healthcare reform law by convincing four Democrats to repeal all or parts of the law, according to a report by Politico.

A new study reveals half of all graduating medical residents or fellows who received training in Illinois plan to leave the state and practice elsewhere, an exodus linked to the state’s “toxic” malpractice environment, according to a Northwestern University news…

California state and hospital officials have identified structural weaknesses in more than 20 hospital facilities in the state, including buildings at risk of crumbling during earthquakes, according to an NBC report.

On Nov. 2, The U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois dismissed a federal false claims suit filed by whistleblowers against Chicago's Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush, several of its physicians and Rush University Medical Center.

The percentage of physicians with relationships to medical device manufacturers and drugmakers fell from 2004-2009, but independent physicians still had more relationships than hospital-employed or academic physicians, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine.