Late last night, the president signed

On Thursday afternoon, the House of Representatives passed the legislation necessary to prevent the 21% SGR cut from taking place on Monday.  The House bill wo

If you are a physician or practice administrator, then at the top or the bottom of that stack on you desk or those emails in your inbox there is an item on the federal government's incentives to help implement electronic health records, right?

Do you know what "meaningful use" is and what it will look like in your practice? Even more importantly, do you know what it will cost, how much you can expect from Medicare or Medicaid in incentives? If you answered "No" to any of those questions, then read on.

Barring last-minute action by Congress, the 21.2 percent cut to Medicare physician payments will take effect next Monday, March 1. Despite previous indications that the Senate was considering an amendment to an anticipated job-creation bill to avert the cut, no clear legislative pathway for relief has yet been defined.

Getting physicians paid for their work has become increasingly difficult. It has become as difficult to get paid correctly by the private insurance companies as by the Government.

As I am sure you are all aware, barring last-minute action by Congress, the 21.2 percent cut to Medicare physician payments will take effect next Monday, March 1.  Despite previous indications that the Senate was considering an amendment to an anticipated job-creation bill to avert the cut, no clear legislative pathway for relief has yet been defined.

In an attempt to reenergize broad healthcare reform, which has been stalled in recent weeks, President Obama has scheduled a nationally televised bipartisan healthcare summit for February 25th.  Several legislative strategies have been discussed to reconcile the different versions of the bills passed by the House and Senate.  At this point, there is no clear pathway that has been agreed to by the Democratic leadership.

The president mapped out his clearest plan yet to move forward with comprehensive health care legislation, saying that he wanted to meet with Democrats, Republicans, and independent experts, lay out the facts for the American people and then, he said, "I think that we have got to move forward on a vote."  This was his message to supporters at a fundraiser last night.

The White House said it wants to bolster spending on health information technology under President Barack Obama's fiscal 2011 budget.  In its spending breakdown, the administration plans to push for $110 million more for wiring doctors' offices and hospitals; $290 million for community health centers; and $79 million for rural healthcare.

Rank-and-file senators stopped just short of sounding a death knell for a broad-but-troubled effort to overhaul the healthcare sector. The president's suggestion about a cooling-off period—a short cooling-off period—ring true with some Senators who think that it might be good to give them a chance to reorganize and re-order.  Sen.

Health care reform got a mention, but President Obama spent the bulk of his first State of the Union address laying out his plans for boosting the economy.  While it is clear that he wants Congress to continue work on health care reform, saying that he will not quit and offering for anyone with ideas on how to fix health care come forward, he cozied up to the middle class, talking about upping tax credits for child care, reducing the cost of college, and creating clean-energy jobs.