Current News

October 4, 2022 - Several provider groups and organizations are leading a concerted effort to get Congress to tuck in an extension of a 5% bonus to physicians that participate in value-based care before the money goes away after 2022. [ more ]

July 19, 2022 - Demand for physicians, and their starting salaries, have rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic, as doctors are the targets of intense recruiting activity, according to a new report. [ more ]

June 22, 2022 - Bank of America is committing $40 million to help expand community health centers and primary care facilities in underserved communities across the U.S., it announced Tuesday. [ more ]

June 7, 2022 - Healthcare access looms as doctors' top concern, followed by substance abuse, racial disparities and gun control. Physicians encounter such a wide range of patients, which gives them the opportunity to see how social issues affect various segments of the population, said Medscape's Leslie Kane. [ more ]

June 2, 2022 - Compensation for most physician specialties saw modest increases between 2019 and 2021, according to new MGMA data. [ more ]

May 26, 2022 - More than two years after the onset of the pandemic, changes in COVID-related policies and postures — as well as accompanying cultural shifts in the workplace — continue to drive trends in the job market for radiologists. In 2022, things look markedly different than during the early stages of the pandemic and it's clear that radiologist job seekers now have many options and greater workplace flexibility. [ more ]

May 23, 2022 - The rate at which people are leaving their places of employment varies across the country, with Alaska leading the nation and New York lagging. [ more ]

May 18, 2022 - Hospitalists weigh which changes they want to carry forward.

IS THE PANDEMIC OVER? At press time, BA.2 rates are on the rise, but hospitalization rates for covid patients are at some of their lowest levels in nearly two years. Now that most hospitals are no longer overwhelmed, many of the rapid pandemic innovations that hospitals and hospitalists rushed to put in place—command centers, parking-lot pods, back-up systems, guideline task forces, daily huddles—are no longer needed and are, for now at least, going dormant. [ more ]

May 12, 2022 - A bipartisan duo of senators introduced legislation Monday to reauthorize a series of mental health and substance abuse programs expected to expire later this year.  

The Mental Health Reform Reauthorization Act of 2022 would reauthorize key block grant programs, expand access to pediatric mental health and aims to boost the mental health workforce. The legislation would reauthorize key programs passed in 2016 under the 21st Century Cures Act. [ more ]

May 4, 2022 - After a rocky start to 2022, many physician groups saw early evidence that financial performance may be stabilizing as patient volumes and revenues improved in March.  However, higher volumes also contributed to higher investments and subsidies needed to support physician practices and ongoing expense increases as practices contend with inflation and a tight labor market, according to Kaufman Hall's latest physician flash report. [ more ]

April 19, 2022 - After stagnating during the height of the pandemic, physician salaries rebounded 7% towards the end of 2021, with increases seen in primary care and all other specialties. [ more ]

March 22, 2022 - On March 18, President Joe Biden signed the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act, a law that will provide federal funding to address behavioral health and well-being among healthcare workers. The law is named for Lorna Breen, MD, a New York City emergency physician who died by suicide April 26, 2020, toward the beginning of the pandemic. [ more ]

March 16, 2022 — Sunita Mishra, M.D., spent more than 15 years in medical practice as an internist and primary care doctor and recognized the challenges for some patients to access care. "I'm really passionate about access to care. As much as the primary care relationship is so important, it's almost one of the most difficult to get when you need it," she told Fierce Healthcare during an interview at the ViVE 2022 conference in Miami this week. [ more ]

March 9, 2022 - Congress is set to grant a five-month extension to telehealth flexibilities created during the pandemic as part of a sweeping spending package filed by the House early Wednesday morning.
The extension would leave the flexibilities in place for 151 days after the end of the federal public health emergency, which currently expires in April but is expected to be extended into July. [ more ]

March 1, 2022 - Physician turnover has risen exponentially since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among primary care physicians. Nearly $1 billion in annual excess healthcare spending is due to turnover of primary care physicians, a new study has found. [ more ]

February 8, 2022 - New legislation would allow the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to extend Medicare payments for a broad range of telehealth services, including substance abuse treatment, for an additional two years. Two U.S. senators introduced bipartisan legislation Monday to extend current Medicare telehealth reimbursement waivers an additional two years following the end of the public health emergency. [ more ]

January 10, 2022 - The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is investing $1.8 billion to fund 1,000 new physician residency slots, the largest such increase in 25 years, officials announced Friday, December 17th. [ more ]

January 5, 2022 - With the third year of COVID-19 just around the corner, hospitals and health systems remain locked in a labor crunch that industry groups, executives and analysts don't expect will disappear in 2022.  In early December, Moody's Investors Service published an industry outlook for the new year predicting that staffing shortages and increased labor costs will fuel higher expenses and a resulting decline in operating cash flow for nonprofit hospitals and public healthcare. [ more ]

December 30, 2021 - The changes brought to the industry in 2020 amid the pandemic continued to weigh on the minds of healthcare executives throughout 2021.  And, as they look ahead to the coming year, they're expecting similar themes to carry forward: interest in virtual care, the ongoing pandemic response and a greater focus on patients' social needs. [ more ]

December 21, 2021 - Among the specialties experiencing the most growth right now, Doximity's compensation report shows preventive medicine specialists were on top at $264,539, a whopping 12.6% increase in their average compensation in 2021 over 2020. Likewise, hematology and nuclear medicine both saw double-digit increases in compensation. (Pixabay) [ more ]

December 14, 2021 - HHS announced the latest funding tranche from a $178 billion COVID-19 relief fund passed under the CARES Act. The Department of Health and Human Services announced it has distributed $9 billion in relief payments to providers to plug financial shortfalls caused by the pandemic, with more money going towards smaller providers. [ more ]

November 23, 2021 - The American Rescue Plan-funded investments will yield "the largest field strength in history" for the National Health Service Corps, Nurse Corps and Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery programs, according to the White House. (Pixabay) [ more ]

November 17, 2021 - Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, some healthcare professionals have deliberately made false claims about COVID-19 vaccines and how the virus is transmitted, peddled untested treatments and cures, and flouted public health efforts such as masking and vaccinations. [ more ]

November 12, 2021 - Ten rural states brought a lawsuit against the Biden administration Wednesday over the nationwide requirement that staff working at healthcare facilities be vaccinated for COVID-19 as a condition of participation in Medicare and Medicaid. [ more ]

November 3, 2021 - Two new reports say that the financial crisis in health care caused by the pandemic is showing no signs of letting up for PCPs and hospitals. A new survey by the Primary Care Collaborative found that less than one-third of practices said they are financially healthy and 32% said their practice revenue has yet to recover from the pandemic. [ more ]

November 1, 2021 - Teladoc plans to take on financial risk with its virtual primary care offering as it looks to expand that program to more payers and hospitals. During the company's third-quarter earnings call last week, Teladoc CEO Jason Gorevic said the company will take on degrees of risk, from clinical measures of care to risk corridors to, ultimately, full capitation. [ more ]

October 28, 2021 - Thank you to all of our Clients. Because of you, Alpha Medical Group is able to celebrate its 19th Birthday today having successfully placed 1,872 Healthcare Professionals across 31 specialties in 47 states nationwide. Especially in the past year, we appreciate your business. [ more ]

July 27, 2021 - More than 400 advocacy groups are calling for Congress to act quickly to permanently expand flexibilities for telehealth that could go away after the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency expected to run through 2021. [ more ]

June 30, 2021 - Physician compensation and hospital volumes, revenues, and margins all saw strong gains in May, signaling that the healthcare sector may be returning to pre-pandemic levels, two reports Monday from consultants Kaufman Hall suggest. [ more ]

June 22, 2021 - DuPage Medical Group, the largest multispecialty physician group in Illinois, has inked a deal with The South Bend Clinic to expand into Indiana. The two organizations have signed a letter of intent to form a partnership that will "create a consistent and distinctive patient experience across both organizations," according to a spokesperson. [ more ]

June 8, 2021 - Congress is considering new legislation aimed at boosting funding for medical education with a goal of tackling a shortage of primary care doctors in underserved areas.  The Doctors of Community (DOC) Act introduced in the House of Representatives Tuesday and expected to be released in the Senate next week would permanently authorize the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program that aims to train primary care medical and dental doctors. The legislation would increase annual funding for more than $500 million per year from 2024 through 2033. [ more ]

June 1, 2021 - Government relief, summer volume spikes kept primary physicians afloat in 2020: MGMA report.
Despite the pandemic, physician compensation remained steady in 2020, with a modest increase in compensation for primary care physicians and a slight increase for specialty physicians. [ more ]

May 18, 2021:  The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the use of digital health tools and telehealth to expand access to care at a time when patients were encouraged to stay home and prevent the spread of the virus.  "Digital health technologies such as telehealth certainly weren't invented during COVID-19, but their potential to deliver care was most certainly tested and proven," said Jay Schnitzer, M.D., chief medical and technology officer at Mitre Corporation, a national research and development center. [ more ]