Several Medicare and Medicaid healthcare providers are opening their own clinics to reduce the number of expensive hospital visits that their customers utilize.  The clinics are designed to provide the same care that has been commonly provided in hospitals at the local community clinics at less cost to the insurer than traditional hospital visits.  The clinics are designed to provide care that most doctors’ offices cannot provide, such as IV and dialysis treatments. 

SDRP or Self-Referral Disclosure Protocol is a component of new-age Healthcare Reform that sets limits on physician referrals within a category of services known as DHS or Designated Health Services. Use of resources that fall within this realm (lab services, therapies, medical supplies, at-home services and prescription drugs) is explicitly limited in terms of Medicare billing. Expressly stated as limitations for physicians referring business to any entity in which they hold a financial stake, these restrictions are so strict, in fact, that a non-compliance or accidental overpayment from Medicare could lead a physician’s office to accusations of fraud and top dollar claim repayments. So how do medical professionals best avoid this hurdle? By being absolutely certain their medical billing is Stark Law Compliant:

As you may have heard, we are having a great debate in this county over healthcare reform.  While most Americans strongly agree that we do need to reform healthcare within the country, most Americans disapprove of the current solution that has been passed into law by Congress.  There are many reasons why Americans don’t like the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The most common one is that it brings us a giant leap closer to socialized medicine.  Whether you agree with the side that claims that this is only a step toward socialized medicine or not, it is clear that socialized medicine is the ultimate goal of liberals in politics.

by Kent Bottles, MD

Every morning at 5:30 AM, I am at my computer scouring the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and other news sources for articles about health care and wellness.

These articles are then summarized in 140 characters with a link to the original article and tweeted. As of today there are 3700

by Kevin Pho, MD

Medicare is thinking of using patient satisfaction scores in part to determine bonuses to hospitals.

According to Kaiser Health News,

… patient gripes soon will affect how much hospitals get paid by Medicare.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is finalizing details for the new reimbursement method, required by