Keith L. Martin

If you are looking for the latest and greatest practice management news from this year’s MGMA11 Conference, we’ve got you covered.

When it comes to practice management software, it appears more physician practices are aligning their purchases with another big health IT investment: their EHR.

If you are leaning more towards procrastination than preparation when it comes to readying for CMS' compliance deadlines for 5010 and ICD-10, you may want to start taking action. But when it comes to Stage 2 of proving meaningful use for your EHR, you might be in luck.

Perhaps the folks in Washington, D.C., looking for a solution to the jobs crisis should look to an industry they've been focusing on changing for the last decade: healthcare. More specifically, they might want to look at office-based physician practices, which supported four million jobs in 2009, according to new AMA data.

Looking for the keys to job satisfaction for your employees? Look no further than autonomy, action, and assessment.

No doubt salaries are important, but are you paying the right people today and will you have the right mix in the coming years? The experts weigh in.

With one of its main tenets of shared savings, the recently-released proposed rules for accountable care organizations outline how physicians can balance risk versus reward in these new healthcare partnerships. In addition to choosing whether to participate in ACOs, who physicians select as their partners in these new ventures is equally as important.

After months of preparation, family physician Douglas Foreman was one of thousands of physicians to go online today and make his case to CMS that he was in fact achieving "meaningful use" of his EHR.

With the looming lockout of the National Football League, keeping tabs on what is happening with Medicare may be enough drama and intrigue to tide us all over through a cold winter if our favorite pro teams decide to sit on the sidelines rather than take to the fields.

Can your new EHR play nice with your old practice management system? Or should you just replace them both at the same time?

How will you and your practice fare in a reformed healthcare market? We surveyed the experts for clarity on what's changing, what's not, and how it's all likely to affect you.

Looking for the best defense against possible litigation? According to plaintiffs' attorneys, good communication and proper documentation are your best weapons when legal action threatens. Here's the inside scoop on how to protect yourself against lawsuits, straight from the people who make a living filing them.

The term "doctor shortage" can elicit many responses - disbelief by some and worry by others are among the two most popular - but perhaps new solutions are emerging to help meet what Washington, D.C., sees as a growing patient base in need of medical care. The answer? Temporary physicians and perhaps one very smart "Jeopardy" contestant.

Once you know your practice is being evaluated by payers, monitor yourself using the same metrics to stay on top of your game.

Navigating the world of health IT can be confusing, to say the least. Just keeping up with all the acronyms is tough enough, much less the exploding offerings of tech products to aid you, your staff, and your patients. Sometimes you need a little help on where to start.

If you are looking for new and emerging health IT solutions for your practice, HIMSS11 is a great place to start and Physicians Practice is providing comprehensive coverage of the event.

The latest study results from the AMA when it comes to payers and their power in local markets may not be good news to all.

When the calendar turned to 2011, the realization came with it that a whole generation of baby boomers were turning 65 and would lack specialists to address their eldercare needs. As many in the media have dubbed it, the United States is facing a "silver tsunami."

You love your nonphysician providers and want your patients to love them, too. But patients may be uneasy about not getting to see their doctor each time they visit. Managing expectations and carefully introducing other providers is the key.

In one sentence, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson caused a nationwide tidal wave of reaction across the healthcare industry: "Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire [Affordable Care] Act must be declared void."

A group of U.S. House Republicans want to take President Obama up on his offer to cut wasteful spending by starting with incentives tied to health information technology.

“How I helped save folk rock legend Jimmy Buffett” That’s the headline in today’s Daily Telegraph, an Australian newspaper, featuring a very detailed account by one of its health columnists, Dr. Gordian Fulde, who is also the chief of a local emergency department.

More and more patients are using complementary and alternative methodologies to supplement their healthcare, so it's time for docs to learn more about this growing field. Here's what you need to know about CAM and the role it can play in your practice and patient care.

Want to learn more on how to meet "meaningful use" from someone who has already received $42,500 in federal incentives? Let an Oklahoma practice show you how it's done.

Physician profiling, by patients and payers, has become the norm these days, but it seems some doctors are putting a stop to any online comments about their service.Television station KDAF in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas recently ran a story about a local practice that is asking patients to sign a form prohibiting patients from making comments about their visit on the Internet, essentially, as the report says, "turning over editorial content over " to the physician.

With a new year comes a new set of initiatives taking effect under the Affordable Care Act and we move another year closer towards other undefined initiatives. But if there is one current theme among the majority of reform initiatives it is teamwork to improve care, a goal that may be as challenging as making reform a reality.

The debate over who gets the final decision for organ donation received some new fuel on the fire recently, thanks to a pair of Mississippi prison inmates and a Maryland college professor. Both examples raise the interesting question of who should decide donation and should there be any kind of payment in return, including one's freedom.

The toughest payers to collect from are your own patients. Don't despair, there are things you can do to get paid.

Our 2010 Fee Schedule Survey indicates that with commercial payments narrowly keeping pace with Medicare, practices need to get paid more for the work already being done.

A little preparation and communication can go a long way toward a smooth-running practice