By Jessica Marcy

The number of emergency room visits in the U.S. rose nearly 13 million in 2009 – about 10 percent — to more than 136 million visits – which is the largest increase ever, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Statistics like this, combined with changes that will result as the 2010 health law is implemented, have led some emergency room doctors to focus on medical liability reform as a means to reduce the nation’s health care costs by discouraging the …

By Michelle Andrews

Cancer often takes a heavy toll not only on people’s bodies but on their finances as well. And just as some types of cancer are more deadly than others, some types cause more financial pain, as recent research from Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center shows.
When researchers examined bankruptcy rates in Washington state and compared them with a registry of 232,000 cancer patients there between 1995 and 2009, they found that five years after their diagnosis cancer patients were four times more …

By Shefali S. Kulkarni

Is it time to ditch the white coats and scrubs?
A recent study suggests that doctors might want to hang up their iconic white coats and long sleeves to prevent the spread of dangerous bacteria. Dr. Yonit Weiner-Well and his colleagues, sampled uniforms of 135 physicians and nurses at the Hebrew-University—Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem. They found that overall 60 percent had disease-causing bacteria, including some that were resistant to antibiotics. The study, which was published in the most …

By Marilyn Werber Serafini
Just a few weeks into his campaign, Texas Gov. and presidential candidate Rick Perry isn’t talking a whole lot about health care, except to criticize President Obama for last year’s law. And he’s not considered a health care expert. But he’s is passionate on one point: Fixing the nation’s health care system must include a major reform of the medical malpractice system.
In 2009, Perry and fellow GOP presidential competitor Newt Gingrich wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that Texas has successfully controlled …

By Jenny Gold
Kaiser Health News

The race among hospitals to hire local physicians is heating up, even though the consequences for the cost and quality of health care are still unclear.

The trend isn’t new, but hospitals in metropolitan areas across the country are quickening their pace, “driven largely by hospitals’ quest to increase market share and revenue,” according a study released today by the Center for Studying Health System Change,  a nonprofit think tank in Washington D.C.
Hospitals argue that employing more physicians helps them improve the quality of …

By Phil Galewitz
Kaiser Health News
Trumpeting a landmark study released recently, hospitals around the country have started offering deeply discounted CT scans for smokers worried about lung cancer. But some experts question whether the strategy is a marketing ploy that could bring more harm than good.

St. Luke’s Hospital in Bethlehem, Pa., put out a single-page flyer with a headline that a “10-second scan could be life-saving” and a clip-out coupon for a $49 procedure.  University Hospitals in Cleveland has a slick video on its website …

Virtua, the largest comprehensive healthcare system in Southern New Jersey, has partnered with Skillman, NJ-based Zweena to offer free online Personal Health Records (PHRs) to consumers living in South Jersey.  Virtua’s PHR program is intended to empower consumers to take proactive control over their health and more easily manage the health of their family, through a free one year subscription to Zweena for anyone living in Gloucester, Camden, and Burlington counties.
Consumers are becoming increasingly engaged in their health treatment, care, spending, and overall maintenance for themselves and the family members …

The Temple University School of Medicine (TUSM) and West Penn Allegheny Health System (WPAHS) in June announced that they are collaborating to establish a new four-year medical school campus on Pittsburgh’s North Side.
The Temple University School of Medicine at West Penn Allegheny Health System will enable WPAHS and TUSM to address the critical shortage of physicians in Western Pennsylvania by educating and retaining highly trained doctors to serve the local community for many years to come.
Based in Philadelphia, TUSM is one of seven schools of medicine in Pennsylvania conferring the …

Senators Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) revealed their bipartisan proposal to save Medicare and reduce the debt. The Lieberman/Coburn proposal would delay reimbursement cuts for docs for three years, but would raise Medicare eligibility to 67 and increase out-of-pocket expenditures for high earners. The bill would save more than $600 billion over 10 years, based on reviews of Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates, and up to an additional $100 billion savings from implementing the program integrity provisions. Click here for background material detailing the proposal.
“We can’t balance …

Dr. Peter B. Bach, former senior adviser at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Robert Kocher, a special assistant to President Obama on health care and economic policy from 2009 to 2010, is a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. Together they made an interesting proposal to increase the amount of physicians specializing in primary care, which is expected to see a shortfall of 40,000 docs by …