• Revenue Cycle Management
  • COVID-19
  • Reimbursement
  • Diabetes Awareness Month
  • Risk Management
  • Patient Retention
  • Staffing
  • Medical Economics® 100th Anniversary
  • Coding and documentation
  • Business of Endocrinology
  • Telehealth
  • Physicians Financial News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Cardiovascular Clinical Consult
  • Locum Tenens, brought to you by LocumLife®
  • Weight Management
  • Business of Women's Health
  • Practice Efficiency
  • Finance and Wealth
  • EHRs
  • Remote Patient Monitoring
  • Sponsored Webinars
  • Medical Technology
  • Billing and collections
  • Acute Pain Management
  • Exclusive Content
  • Value-based Care
  • Business of Pediatrics
  • Concierge Medicine 2.0 by Castle Connolly Private Health Partners
  • Practice Growth
  • Concierge Medicine
  • Business of Cardiology
  • Implementing the Topcon Ocular Telehealth Platform
  • Malpractice
  • Influenza
  • Sexual Health
  • Chronic Conditions
  • Technology
  • Legal and Policy
  • Money
  • Opinion
  • Vaccines
  • Practice Management
  • Patient Relations
  • Careers

The PMD Critical List: Millions Wasted on Low-Value Services

Article

A new study reports that as many as 8% of patients in 2015 were billed for services that could have little or no positive impact on their health. A doctor in Beveley Hills tells the harowing stoy of a brutal beating, and Forbes explores changing attitudes about the administration of vaccines. These and more top this week's PMD Critical List.

A new study reports that as many as 8% of patients in 2015 were billed for services that could have little or no positive impact on their health. A doctor in Beveley Hills tells the harowing stoy of a brutal beating, and Forbes explores changing attitudes about the administration of vaccines. These and more top this week's PMD Critical List.

9 Questions Doctors Want to Be Asked (Time)

“Doctors have the best intents, but that doesn’t ensure they’ll always recognize a patient’s greatest need. These simple queries could spare patients anxiety, uncertainty and extra cash.”

EHRs “Inflict Enormous Pain” on Doctors (STAT)

“With limited authority and the best of intentions to oversee EHR certification and adoption, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology continues to inflict enormous pain on our nation’s providers and care teams, turning caregivers into box-checkers and inadvertently limiting the private sector from innovating,” so says the CEO of athenahealth, a health care technology company.

Junior Doctors Call Off Next Week's Strike (BBC)

The British Medical Association has called off the junior doctors' strike due to take place in England next week amid concerns about patient safety. "Our hospitals are chronically understaffed, our NHS is desperately underfunded—we have to listen to our colleagues when they tell us that they need more time to keep patients safe,” said the group’s leader.

Doctors Wasting Millions on Low-Value Services (UPI)

“About 8% of patients received a low-value healthcare service in 2015,” according to a new JAMA study, “with most being white and having more expensive insurance plans, suggesting the perceived overuse of certain procedures and tests has more to do with money than with the best care option for patients.”

As More Parents Refuse Vaccines, More Doctors Dismiss Them (Forbes)

“The tides are shifting for parents who delay or refuse vaccines and the doctors who treat them: More pediatricians are seeing more vaccine refusals, and more pediatricians are pushing back. But now, those doctors pushing back have a bit more support from the American Academy of Pediatrics.”

What a General Can Teach Physicians About Leadership (Hospitals & Health Networks)

The approach of US Army General Mark Hertling, described in the book Growing Physician Leaders, “focuses on essential leadership skills rather than business management or administration. Physicians learn how to present themselves as leaders, how to understand the motivations of others and influence them, and how to build teams and gain trust.”

Playing Sick: How Actors Are Making Better Doctors (The Village Voice)

An in-depth report on the practice of using standardized patients (SPs) in the education of medical professionals in New York. “About 85% of all malpractice suits in the USA are based upon a failure of doctor-patient communication. It's not that the doctor didn't know enough.”

Physicians Should Embrace Patients’ Digital Inquisitiveness (New York Times)

A prominent NYC oncologist makes the case for patient’s use of medical websites: “Online investigation of disease and treatment counters what many patients feel as a loss of autonomy. It may help them regain a sense of control during a scary and sometimes helpless time.”

Beverly Hills Surgeon Pistol-Whipped and Left for Dead (The Hollywood Reporter)

Really out to get doctors: “In a nightmare scenario, a well-known physician was brutally attacked inside his BMW after leaving a seaside restaurant. Now, after surviving the bloody beating, he offers an exclusive account of the night he was nearly killed.”

Related Videos
Victor J. Dzau, MD, gives expert advice
Victor J. Dzau, MD, gives expert advice