HealthMarkets, an insurance company, has been sued for deceptive marketing practices. There are claims that the company advises its agents on misleading promotion tactics and sells “junk insurance” policies to unaware consumers.

Living the life of a physician can be extremely hectic. Your job revolves around keeping patients healthy and many times you can forget about your own health. Doctors need me time too. When was the last time you took a mental health day?

Now that health care reform has been passed do you know what to do and how this will affect your medical practice? Are you prepared for the provisions that are already being implemented and the aspects of this law which you will see applied in the years to come?

What’s your schedule like? Do you find yourself attending many conferences and traveling across the country? Check out this interesting article from Dr. Gerald O’Malley, published in Physicians Practice.

What will draw more people to your website ~ a fancy new design with great graphics or relevancy in internet searches (SEO or Search Engine Optimization)? The latter is the way to go. Catchy graphics are great, but they won’t give you the traffic you want.

Various challengers of Virginia’s healthcare reform law have been called extremist and that “killing the legislation would hurt Americans.” Should the Government be allowed to pass legislation requiring Americans to purchase health insurance? If this is enforced, would they easily pass further legislation to require Americans to purchase other products?

If hospitals are struggling financially and have to declare bankruptcy, is there a way out for them? If these hospitals file Chapter 11 they have a chance to come out the other side with a renewed chance at making their facility work. If they file Chapter 7, their assets will be liquidated and they will be shut down, with no chance at revitalization.

On Wednesday, one of the largest Medicare fraud schemes was busted. Seventy-three people have been charged, including members of an Armenian-American crime syndicate. Over $163 million in fraudulent Medicare bills were submitted. The criminal participants netted almost $36 million.

One of the reasons that this institute did such a study is because with the full advent of health care reform, millions more Americans will become patients and their thought process is that nurses should not be prevented from “practicing to the full extent of their education and training.” Even if nurses have masters or doctoral degrees, the scope of their practice depends on the state regulations they have to abide by. Some consider that nurse practitioners will have to take an advanced role to fill the shoes of the missing primary care physicians.

It’s no secret that hospital cafeterias do not serve the best food, but there is a growing trend that hospitals are beginning to start serving more nutritious food. In Wisconsin, two ThedaCare hospitals are taking the lead in putting healthier food on their menus. After banning the deep fryer, bacon and donuts are no longer an option; neither are “super-sized meals and drinks.” Canned fruit and frozen vegetables have been replaced with fresh produce.

Safety-net hospitals in Massachusetts are set to receive $435 million in aid over the next two years. $335 million will be coming from the Federal Government and $100 million will be coming from the State Government.

Contrary to earlier figures, the new projected number of doctor shortages by 2015, one year after all of the health care reform takes place, is approximately 63,000. Earlier projections had the numbers at around 40,000.

Do you know the best places to practice medicine? Check out this report from Physicians Practice

In Maryland, the Secretary of Health would like to expand on peer review practices. The state has been investigating the number of cardiac stent procedures, which they claim in certain MD hospitals, “far exceeds the state average.”