As the cost of health care jettisoned out of sight, something had to give. Managed care organizations sprung up and convinced the insurance companies that they could manage the insured patient’s benefits and even save the insurance company more money than their fee for the service. They would charge 15 percent for this and save […]

Where did the runaway health care costs originate? Why did the government and the business world get so involved in reducing costs? Where was the high-cost center that precipitated all this? Who was the culprit? Hospital charges were so exorbitant that the government’s best efforts to control Medicare and Medicaid costs were to implement the […]

In the past few weeks, the press has pointed out many instances of HMOs forcing their guidelines on our hospital patients. Just when the brouhaha of sending mothers with their newborn infants home on the date of delivery has died down with a rash of laws to allow two days, instances of outpatient mastectomies have […]

Dr Allen, an internist, who had a successful practice for over 10 years and even owned his own office building, was getting tired of all the hassles of private practice. He was tired of running an office, supervising personnel, doing medical billing, and a host of other things required to run an efficient office. He […]

The surplus hospital beds have created a problem in down sizing. The real challenge is how to get rid of nursing staff painlessly without fear of retribution. Last month we told you how hospitals got rid of doctors. It worked so smoothly that they are using it on nurses. In a recent merger, where the […]

Can doctors lose their source of income in this Era of hospital mergers? Unbelievable, but yes. Let me tell you about a case that was so smooth that most doctors did not even get an attorney to protect their license-an investment, according to some estimates of a half million dollars of personal or parental funds […]

Some HMOs have developed hospital-based physician staffs to manage all inpatients. Although this has been touted as being more efficient, this is generally not the case. A covering doctor, in the absence of the primary doctor, recently admitted a sixty-three-year-old patient to the hospital for exacerbation of bronchitis with respiratory failure. He noted that the […]