Keith L. Martin

In a move to limit conflicts of interest among its faculty members, Harvard Medical School is banning staff from giving promotional talks and accepting gifts, travel, or meals from pharma and medical device makers.

The AMA and several state medical associations say cost profiles of physicians by the nation’s biggest insurers is “unreliable” at best and steering consumers in the wrong direction.

Republicans in Congress want Dr. Donald Berwick to tell them why he’s the right man for the job and as physicians, shouldn’t you get to hear that too?

Just months old, new federal health reform still has that “new legislation shine,” but it seems some of your peers doubt that luster will last.

You may have an obligation to report a colleague who is impaired or incompetent, but it turns out most of you are reluctant to do so. Why? Because physicians are “unprepared” to deal with it.

While a provision of national health reform calls for increased house calls for some of the nation’s sickest patients by 2012, a pair of congressmen say the initiative is needed now and want progress by the end of the year.

Is the AMA still a relevant lobbying force on Capitol Hill? It’s a question posed in a story by Politico, and a concern many physicians have been having for years.

With states across the nation facing physician shortages and new docs dealing with mounting education-based debt, a new proposal may offer some relief.

With the news that a California plastic surgeon is suing to stop some online critics of her work comes a renewed debate on the value of online reviews of doctors.

First, Congress let a Medicare reimbursement cut take effect before the “doc fix” put things right – temporarily – for another six months. Now, the Obama Administration has another Medicare crisis to deal with, this time in the front office.

Given “the risks and hassles” of operating their own businesses, a new survey suggests that independent, private medical practices might “be a thing of the past.”

Does your relationship with pharma or medical device companies hurt your patient relationship? A new report suggests it could without proper disclosure.

Perhaps not surprisingly, money is trumping managing when it comes to what medical practice professionals see as their biggest daily challenges.

The New York Times has an interesting blog entry today regarding steps patients can take to cut either their wait times at their physician visits or take another attempt at trimming: by seeking a discount.

Just when it seemed there was a temporary reprieve to physicians’ concerns about declining Medicare reimbursements comes word that the winter could be a tougher season than initially expected.

Imagine if the latest solution to delaying Medicare reimbursement cuts were a pharma commercial.

A Boston-based physician says primary care doctors “are uniquely positioned to teach and influence patients,” and should use that power to address a growing concern: distracted driving.

There are more than a dozen former and current physicians and members of the medical field present in the U.S. House of Representatives, yet many are keeping mum over the likelihood their congressional body will not act on the scheduled 21 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements.

A new article by a University of North Carolina journalism professor presents a very interesting portrayal of physicians dispatched by television networks to the sites of major disasters: Is their first priority to treat patients to medical care or treat viewers to an inside look?

Physicians entering their practice this morning are faced with two uncertainties: How long will I go without the full Medicare reimbursement and when will Congress make a long-term decision on whether or not to enact the proposed cut?

If you were hoping for a resolution to the months-long tug-of-war over Medicare reimbursements in Washington, D.C., the end seems nowhere in sight.