SHORT CUTS
Short Cuts
May 31, 1997
2 minutes read
Outlier. A physician with more malpractice payments than any other doctor in Massachusetts was not reported on the state’s physician profile hot line. The reason? According to the Boston Globe, the hot line’s standardized form only has room for six malpractice payments and this physician, a gynecologist, had nine. Because state officials couldn’t choose which six cases to use, they left the doctor off the list altogether.
You can’t keep a good crook down—When it comes to health care fraud, thieves’ creativity apparently knows no bounds. A Florida endocrinologist, who serves on the state’s medical fraud committee, reports that burglars broke into his office to copy records of patients who recently had undergone a medical procedure, such as an X-ray. Then, according to the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel, the burglars sent bills to those patients from an assortment of bogus medical specialty offices
Gag clause fever—It swept the nation last year, but a painstaking review of 50 representative contracts between managed care organizations and mental health and substance abuse providers by George Washington University’s Center for Health Policy Research indicates that the issue may have been overblown.
"Of all the contracts we reviewed, only two contained clauses that could be construed as "gag clauses (i.e. clauses that appear to prohibit providers from speaking to patients about coverage and treatment determinations made by the plan)," the survey notes. Similar results were found during another review of agreements with primary care providers in Medicaid. The conclusion: "The problem of gag clauses provisions may be less widespread than one would believe given the publicity the practice has received."
SHORT CUTS
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