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A 2007 lawsuit involving an incident at a Louisiana hospital illustrates the lack of understanding among providers regarding the provisions and applications of the HIPAA privacy rule, notes Elizabeth H. Hogue, Esq., a Burtonsville, MD-based attorney specializing in health care issues.
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A recent security-related incident at a U.S. hospital is of "significant concern" and should serve as a wake-up call to health care leaders, suggests Stephen Frew, JD, a web site publisher (www.medlaw.com) and risk management specialist.
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A fee schedule change affecting payment for ground ambulance charges under Section 414 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 provides increased payments for urban and rural services, adds an increased payment for ambulance transports originating in certain low-density population areas, and provides a 25% bonus on the mileage rate for ground transports of 51 miles or greater.
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The 2008 Fortune magazine list of "100 Best Companies to Work For" includes 11 hospitals and health systems, including Methodist Hospital System in Houston, which placed 10th.
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Emergency department patients waited an average of 30 minutes to see a physician in 2004, eight minutes longer than in 1997, according to a study of U.S. ED visits published on-line recently by Health Affairs.
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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has granted a request from the American Hospital Association (AHA) to allow critical access hospitals to submit and publicly report outpatient quality data along with other hospitals.
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If you serve on your hospital's ethics committee, does that make you a medical ethicist?
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It's the ethical spectre that emerges with every advance in genetic testing. Should children be tested for gene mutations that predispose them to developing serious illnesses later in life?
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Clinical research teams and investigators may find that their traditional strategies for handling incidental findings during a trial are inadequate in this age of genetic research.
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Calls to legalize marijuana for medical use have come from an assortment of groups, but none with the status and influence of the American College of Physicians (ACP), the country's second-largest medical association, until now.
