When Oak Brook, Ill.-based Advocate Health Care launched its Clinical Integration Program a little more than five years ago, very few organizations were aligning with independent physicians in ways that today would be viewed as the underpinnings of an accountable…
Integration & Physician Issues
Frank Wefald, MD, a cardiologist practicing at Johnston Health, a public hospital system in Smithfield, N.C., filed a complaint in county court against Johnston after the system suspended his privileges, according to a report by the Herald.
A pay-for-performance program in the United Kingdom that tied payment to achieving quality targets brought primary-care physicians' income more in line with specialists' income, reduced their work hours and helped reduce a physician shortage, according to a study funded by…
Southcoast Health System, a hospital system in Southeastern Massachusetts, has signed an affiliation agreement with physicians from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston — instead of one of Boston's hospitals — to provide guidance on cancer treatments, according to a…
A small but growing number of physicians are dropping their insurance-based practices in favor of so-called concierge models in which patients pay an up-front annual fee and premium rates in return for deluxe services, according to a report in The…
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The cost profiles insurance companies create for physicians based on their cost of care can vary widely, raising questions about the accuracy of the profiles, according to a new study by the RAND Corp. Insurance companies use these profiles to…
Bucks County (Pa.) Specialty Hospital has beaten the health reform law's Dec. 31 deadline for opening new physician-owned hospitals because its owners bought and rebuilt a women's hospital that had closed, according to a report by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
As hospitals look for strategies to improve physician engagement and physicians look for efficient care environments, both groups are increasingly drawn to clinical co-management agreements in which hospitals run an ASC as a hospital outpatient department. David Thoene, founder and…
In a sign of accelerating efforts by hospitals to align themselves with physicians, a California hospital association is floating the idea of forming a joint foundation to supply its hospital members with physicians, according to a report by the Wall…
As hospitals buy up practices and get back into the physician practice management business, they need to be aware that practices are fundamentally different from hospitals, according to Marc Halley, president and CEO of Halley Consulting Group in Westerville, Ohio.