A new tobacco tax scheduled to go into effect April 1 will cost smokers about $1 more per pack. Those interested in helping Americans quit smoking say that the extra cost will naturally keep some from buying cigarettes and therefore decrease overall health care expenditures on smokers by $44.5 billion over time, according to an article ...

Here's an interesting twist on retail clinics: well-visit-only clinics, focusing on preventive care. This could be a great opportunity for NPs if it starts to take off. See this Wall Street Journal blog post. WellnessMart, owned and operated by a physician in California, treats only well patients, offering the same sort of menu of services ...

Angie's List has plans to let consumers rate their health care providers. The 12-year-old Indianapolis-based company maintains lists of consumer ratings for all kinds of local businesses and services. According to a company press release, the 600,000 list members have been asking for years to add health care providers, hospitals and insurers to ...

ADVANCE editors know a lot, but apparently we don't know everything. (What else is new?) We got an e-mail message last week from an NP protesting an ad in our March print edition. (You might have trouble viewing the ad if you're not a subscriber to ADVANCE.) The ad from the State of New York Department of Public Health urges health care ...

Have you all been watching AMC's Mad Men, the TV series about a Madison Avenue advertising firm in 1960? The premise explores the lofty question of how we create truth — and sell falsehood. We follow the power of sex, ethnicity and money through each episode. The women wear bullet bras, and the men swill bourbon from bottles kept in their desks. ...