THE ADVISOR
An Online Newsletter for Medical Professionals
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The problem with healthcare for humans...how do you insure something that is priceless?
I can insure my personal auto and an insurance company can compute with relative accuracy what they need to charge in premiums to make it worth their while. I'll bet I could insure a race horse or a champion bull. But the insurance wouldn't be for the health of the animal but rather for the value of the animal as a commodity...
Five material issues that should be addressed in your employment agreement
Congratulations - Your education will soon be behind you, and an enticing job offer at a private medical practice awaits. Although you've worked through all of the material terms of employment with your new employer, to your great dismay an e-mail arrives from the practice's HR department to which is attached a 40-page employment agreement...
Primary care physicians...an endangered species.
Although you don't see it in the headlines, and you don't hear it from the "talking heads" on the evening news, and there doesn't appear to be a great deal of time being spent by politicians searching for solutions...we don't have enough primary care doctors in this country...
How would you feel if your practice's funding was determined by a patient satisfaction survey?
Now here is something that docs in this country can really look forward to as our heath care system careens toward socialized medicine. It seems that government funding for general practitioners in Great Britain is driven in part by the results of patient satisfaction surveys...
Insurance 101: Why Buy Life Insurance?
Whether you're just completing residency or fellowship or have your own established practice, the main driver behind most physicians' purchase of life insurance is to ensure your loved ones are taken care of if you are no longer alive...
Insurance 201: Insuring Your Practice
When most people think of life insurance, they think of it as something they need in their personal lives. But the benefits of life insurance extend way beyond the family unit into protection for businesses and key employees...
Would tort reform really moderate the rising cost of healthcare?
Ask a physician if malpractice premiums affect the cost of health care and you will not only get an affirmative answer but probably an impassioned lecture. Many doctors place the cost of malpractice coverage and defensive medicine at 10%...
Health Insurance Actuaries...playing a game where the goal line keeps moving.
Insurance companies are businesses. They are for the most part corporations. Corporations are owned by stock holders. Stockholders hold stock because they expect that the company will be run intelligently and make money, thus providing a return on their investment...
News Flash: Poor people are sicker than rich people.
Here is something gleaned from the September issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Poor people on Medicare tend to spend more than rich people on Medicare. And here is a shocker from the same article...sick people tend to spend more than healthy people...do ya think...