WFNS Awards AANS 2009 Conference During a September meeting in Lisbon, the delegates of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies selected the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) to host the XIV International Congress of Neurological Surgery. The meeting will be held in Boston in August 2009.
MGMA Report Demonstrates Increase in Demands on Practices The Physician Compensation and Production Survey: 2003 Report Based on 2002 Data, published in August by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), showed an overall increase in physician compensation, but decreases in compensation for some specialists. For example, general surgeons experienced a year-to-year compensation decline of 0.8 percent. Compensation increases for a number of other specialties were barely in line with general inflation, and some specialties reported higher productivity while compensation remained static. “We expect to see even greater effects due to increases in professional liability insurance costs in 2003, and the full effect may not even occur until 2004 and beyond,” said William F. Jessee, MD, MGMA president and chief executive officer. “As costs go up and revenues decline, physicians find themselves working harder for no more money. As a result, they increasingly face difficult choices, such as avoiding high-risk procedures and patients, withdrawing from Medicare and other insurance programs, or leaving their practices entirely.”
AAA Declines to Enforce Pretreatment Arbitration Agreements The American Arbitration Association (AAA) announced recently that it would not participate in arbitrations based on pretreatment agreements between patients and their doctors. An article on the use of such agreements, published in the Spring 2003 issue of the Bulletin, discussed the Florida Medical Association’s sample Healthcare Arbitration Agreement, a risk-management tool for Florida physicians. In commentary accompanying the article, AANS General Council Russell Pelton anticipated that the enforceability of such agreements would vary sharply from state to state. He recently stated, “The usefulness of pretreatment arbitration agreements has been put into even greater jeopardy by the AAA’s policy to refuse to participate in arbitrations based on pretreatment agreements.” The AAA policy, available at www.adr.org, reads in part, “As a result of a review of its caseload in the healthcare area, the American Arbitration Association has announced that it will no longer accept the administration of cases involving patients without a postdispute agreement to arbitrate.”
Farmers Insurance Group Leaves Liability Market The exodus from the professional liability insurance (PLI) market continued in September with Farmers Insurance Group’s announcement that it had ceased issuing new policies and that, as of Jan. 1, it would stop renewals, subject to the approval of insurance regulators in each state. The Associated Press reported that in 2002, Farmers Insurance lost $100 million on its PLI policies, and that its current policies, valued at $94.5 million, are down from $231 million in premiums the year before. The announcement was made in Missouri, where liability policies issued by Farmers Insurance are expected to expire within 15 months. Missouri is one of the states experiencing a severe PLI crisis (see cover story). Other states served by Farmers Insurance Group are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming.
Online CME Captures Physicians’ Attention A growing number of physicians are going online for their continuing medical education (CME), according to a new report by Manhattan Research, www.manhattanresearch.com. The report, titled eCME Research, says that the market for online CME has grown from 204,000 in 2000 to 363,000 in 2003. However, the report concluded that physicians were more interested in the concept of online CME than in the current offerings available to them. “Until the online experience can match that of offline offerings in terms of course design, interactivity, and effectiveness, the percentage of total CME will remain relatively stable for many practicing physicians today,” stated Ashley Wendus, senior analyst at Manhattan Research.
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