Does an expansion of health insurance increase or decrease use of the emergency department (ED)? Both possibilities can be justified, according to a perspective published in the New England Journal of Medicine Sept. 7. On the one hand, research on patient cost sharing predicts that reducing the out-of-pocket costs of an ED visit and expanding insurance coverage, especially in the face of physician shortages, could result in increased ED utilization.

The Delaware Insurance Commissioner has ordered Blue Cross Blue Shield of Delaware to adopt the American College of Cardiologys FOCUS program, based on national medical society-developed appropriate use criteria.

The American College of Radiology (ACR) strongly criticized proposed rule changes to the 2012 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule in a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Donald Berwick, MD, and specifically challenged the rationale for further extending multiple procedure payment reductions (MPPR).

The American Medical Association (AMA) has released new Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes that will be reported by hospitals, physicians and ambulatory centers providing coverage for additional treatment options for cancer patients.

Diagnostic radiologists faced slightly fewer malpractice claims per year than did physicians as a whole, according to a study in the Aug. 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Neurosurgeons had the highest percentage, with 19.1 percent facing a claim annually.

A prognostic model designed for use in patients with advanced cancer bested clinicians estimates of survival and performed in an array of patients and circumstances, according to a study published online Aug. 25 in British Medical Journal.

A recent survey of more than 300 financial managers in healthcare found that 70 percent of respondents collected less than 30 percent of their payments at the point of service and almost half collected less than 15 percent of payments prior to service. The survey was designed by the credit bureau TransUnion and distributed to attendees of the Healthcare Financial Management Associations (HFMA) annual conference in June.

In a study surveying ICD-9-CM subcategories, debridement was found to be the subcategory that caused the most confusion among coders, based on a report published in the summer issue of Perspectives in Health Information Management.