Podcast by Mark F. Weiss
Health care fraud is far from harmless. Fraudulent activities drain billions from health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid, leading to higher taxes and less money for other important services.
Making The Bet Without Knowing The Odds by Mark F. Weiss
You're signed in to the hospital's electronic medical record system. What's the harm in just typing in the name of a friend to see what pops up?
According to 2023 reports, by 2021, nearly 70% of physicians were employed by hospitals or investor-owned corporations.
No, I don't have a crystal ball and I can't predict the future. But that doesn't mean that I'm blind and can't see a cliff dropping off on the near horizon.
Telehealth can be used to vastly improve patients' access to medical care. At the same time, it can be used to vastly improve criminals' access to Medicare dollars. It shouldn't be that difficult for physicians to assess the bona fides of their proposed participation in a telehealth “business model” when the ones doing the proposing are telemarketers.
If what the government alleged were true, it would be an emergency physician's dream job: billing for services without ever treating or even speaking with the patient.
The financial impact was immediate and momentous: Neither new nor existing claims, nor payment for them, could be processed.
The financial impact was immediate and momentous: Neither new nor existing claims, nor payment for them, could be processed.
Many predicted that the financial behemoths run by the smartest guys in the room would swallow up every physician on the planet.
Many people tend to think within professional silos. Barbers cut hair. Farmers farm. And, doctors practice medicine. Why?
Banks, brokerages, and your medical group or facility's potential violation of HIPAA?
Most people don't like throwing good money after bad in a contract dispute.
The first purchase price is the one that the seller receives. The second purchase price is the one that the seller pays by having sold to the wrong buyer.
What policies does your group have? How are they enforced . . . or even, how can they be enforced?
Picture a revolving door. Even though many physicians and facility administrators don't realize it, a revolving door can be a useful analogy for anti-kickback analysis. Or, I suppose, just for kickbacks.
I remember, as a kid, walking around Disneyland, noticing yellow "no parking" size signs labeled Kodak Moment. They indicated a great vantage point for taking a photo.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that being late signals your importance or your power.
There are many reasons why contracts are usually contracted -- made compact, that is -- by having them contained within one fully integrated document.
I've written about hospital closures, shrinking hospitals, and hospitals that became holes in the ground. I've even written an entire book on The Impending Death of Hospitals. But before today, I've never written about a hospital that turned to crowdfunding to stay afloat.
I represent physicians in transactions across the country and there are plenty of ways to make a profit and to do the right thing for patients.
I was driving when I saw the sign, one of those large plasticized canvas ones, tacked up on the side of a small office building: "FREE* First Chiropractic Visit"
As I've mentioned many times on the blog, medical groups and facilities often create whistleblowers – their own compliance officers and other executives flip on them with regularity.
What's a hospital surprise bill? Well, it's something slightly different from the concept applied to physicians.
Not only is all that glitters not gold, shipping containers thought to contain nickel might just contain carbon steel.
What is your back up plan in the event that your preventive action fails?
Sometimes, I think it's Groundhog Day. No, not the Punxsutawney Phil kind, but the Bill Murray movie kind, you know, when things keep repeating themselves over and over and over again. Like stupid kickback schemes.
Love may be blind, but whistleblowers aren't.
We'll take your $15 billion stipend, but as to those strings you put on it, “F*^%” you”.
They say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.
The context was the sale of various healthcare facilities, deals which, by definition, involve the sale of the business...
The paradigm for physician hospital relations is completely at odds with society's other trends.
How will physicians fit within the bureaucratically envisioned healthcare system of the future?
The hospital has written the script for your future. Don't like it? Grab your own pen.
Employment by hospitals is no safe harbor for physicians; in fact, it's quite the opposite.
Do you know the secrets of using fear of loss as a tactic in hospital negotiations?
How to develop the skills and strengths to guide your group's future.
There is no question that the healthcare market is changing rapidly. This means that groups must have the ability to make business decisions rapidly.
Many medical practices operate as if no one is driving the bus.
"No" is only the beginning point for further negotiation.
Train your medical group's members for actions consistent with the group's strategy.
It's often how the mistake maker, not the “victim,” reacts that makes the difference in the outcome.
Lowering your goals just to tell yourself that you've hit them is a crime against your potential.
Lawyers hear this all the time from newer members of their firm. Doctors, too, hear it from junior members of their medical group.
In a personal services business, from medical groups to acute care hospitals, what's more important, your people or your tangible assets?
People often cite Newton's First Law as something akin to "an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction."
There's little question that most, if not all, medical groups should be led by practicing physicians.
Value is what's important to your customer. Not to you.
Words matter. They are the bullets in the fight for public perception, in the battle for change.
What good is an exclusive contract if the facility demands that it become non-exclusive?
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