A press release issued by the American Medical Association states that the AMA and state and national medical specialty societies sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressing serious concern about an onslaught of overlapping regulations that affect physicians. The AMA cited the value-based ...

It’s hard to look your best when you are wearing too many hats.  While the business of health care struggles in a depressed economy and a revenue cycle containing a growing number of under and uninsured, pending government regulations such as HITECH, the Affordable Care Act, HIPAA 5010 and ICD-10 conversions have produced, for many,  a ...

(Editor's note: This guest blog is written by Valerie Neff Newitt, managing editor of ADVANCE for Respiratory Care & Sleep Medicine.) Smoking is a lousy, smelly, costly habit. Even worse, cigarette packs come lined with the foil of disease - think emphysema, lung cancer, heart disease, COPD, and more. We all know smoking is bad for us. So ...

(Editor's note: This guest blog is written by Dan Pelino, General Manager, IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences.) At many hospitals, there is a virtual turnstile at the front door -- clicking every time someone walks in. As a hospital administrator, you win by 15 percent if the patient walking in is privately insured but you take a six percent hit if ...

(Editor's Note: October is Health Literacy Month. This guest blog is written by Jimmy Thacker, a respiratory therapist and certified asthma educator.) Low health literacy has a devastating effect on the well-being of Americans. It leads to missed appointments with doctors, medications that are taken incorrectly or not at all, instructions ...

On Sept. 27, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the launch of HealthCare.gov on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Healthcare.gov. ''HealthCare.gov on Facebook offers Facebook users a new tool to understand and stay informed about the Affordable Care Act,'' said Sebelius. ''This new page is another resource that people ...

(Editor's note: The following blog is written by Skyler Perkins, a full-time AuD student at ATSU - Arizona School of Health Sciences.) I usually experience healthcare from the provider's point of view, but I recently had the opportunity to experience it from the patient's perspective, and I learned a valuable lesson. During a routine follow-up ...

(Editor's Note: This guest blog is written by Matthew T. Patton (mpatton@advanceweb.com), editor of ADVANCE for Medical Laboratory Professionals.) Wall Street failures. The housing market and mortgage industry collapse. The epic, disastrous BP oil spill. Huge mistakes with dire consequences for a large chunk of the global population. How can ...

With patients across the country voicing a growing desire for greater engagement in and control over their medical care, a new study involving patients in Boston, Pennsylvania and Seattle will examine the impact of letting patients see the notes that doctors record during and after their visit. Funded through a $1.4 million grant from the ...

(Editor's note: This blog was originally posted by Carrie Adkins-Ali, an editor at ADVANCE.) Sitting upright all day isn't a natural position for humans, and standing is hard on the legs. This presents a conundrum for people who work at desks for a living. We are designed for movement and ''the best posture probably is the next posture.'' In this ...