DOJ Goes After PA for Amniotic Fluid Injections
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has turned its attention to birth tissue products, charging a Texas-based physician assistant with healthcare fraud for allegedly injecting patients with amniotic fluid in a “dubious attempt at pain management,” announced the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. Ray Anthony Shoulders, PA, allegedly submitted $788,000 in fraudulent claims […]
Fired COVID Whistleblower Will Take His Case to Trial With New Lawyers
Ming Lin, MD, the emergency physician who was fired early in the COVID pandemic for airing alleged safety concerns, has hired new lawyers to take his case to trial. After parting ways with lawyers working for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) because he didn’t want to settle his case as they recommended, Lin selected […]
MACRA Gets Mixed Reviews at House Hearing
WASHINGTON — The physician payment system instituted under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) has brought some positive results but still needs to be improved, witnesses said Thursday at a House of Representatives hearing. “Despite the good intentions of policymakers, MACRA has not solved the issues with how Medicare pays doctors,” Joe Albanese, […]
Is Getting Test Results Online Right Away a Good Idea? Yes, Patients Say
Patients who receive test results online before their physician has had a chance to review them should have immediate access to resources to help them adjust to bad news, an expert suggested. “We need to do more to wrap patients in support and information tools and technology when that result is scary, when that result […]
Doc Moms, Mind the Gap — $3M Earning Difference by Sex
During a 40-year career, the average female physician with children made $3 million less than the average male physician with children — nearly double the male-female earnings gap experienced by single physicians, according to a national study of 95,000 physicians. In a cross-sectional analysis of surveys conducted from 2005 to 2019, female physicians earned as […]
Opinion | ‘You Don’t See the Sun’: What We Heard This Week
“You don’t see the sun. You don’t smell the flowers.” — Oleksandr Rikhter, MD, a top trauma physician from Ukraine, on the day-to-day lives of healthcare workers after the country was invaded by Russia. “Even asking one question routinely — how do you manage your stress? — can be very helpful for patients to open […]
Opinion | The Million-Dollar Mistake
Every physician without a business education who works in private medical practice leaves approximately $1 million on the table, and is unaware of that, a fact that’s well known to business experts who work with doctors experiencing financial difficulties. Experts such as Dan S. Kennedy, Peter Drucker, Michael Gerber, Maxwell Maltz, MD, Neil Baum, MD, […]
Child Molestation Charges Land Seattle-Area Doc With a Suspended License
A King County physician had his license suspended amid allegations of child molestation, the Washington State Department of Health announced earlier this week. In August, Lu Gao, MD, PhD, was arrested and charged with one count of second-degree child molestation-domestic violence and one count of third-degree child molestation-domestic violence in King County Superior Court, according […]
Physician Wants Hospital CEO Pay Capped at $800K
A former physician at the MetroHealth System in Cleveland has called for a cap on CEO pay after the health system’s top executive allegedly awarded himself and others more than $2.2 million in unauthorized bonuses last year. Kenneth Frisof, MD, a retired family medicine doctor, wrote in a letter to the editor of Cleveland.com that […]
Proposed Budget Deal Would Partially Delay Cut to Medicare Physician Payments
WASHINGTON — Physician groups wasted no time Tuesday expressing their dismay over a proposed $1.7 trillion budget deal in Congress that would rescind upcoming Medicare physician payment cuts — but only partially. “MGMA is deeply dismayed by the failure of Congress to adequately address the full 4.5% cut to the Medicare conversion factor set to […]