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	<title>MedBlogger</title>
	<link>http://blogs.memag.com</link>
	<description>medical practice, physician finances, malpractice &#38; doctor-patient relations news</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:29:18 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>The expenses that eat up a $100 office visit</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re an internist who receives $100 for a 99214 office visit, expect to pocket only $41 in profit. The rest of the money goes for overhead such as malpractice insurance ($3.50), equipment and its repair and maintenance (another $3.50), supplies such as tongue depressors and copy paper ($6), rent and utilities ($7), general operating [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/expenses-office-visit/</link>
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		<title>New Joint Commission standard seeks to tame hospital bullies</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you&#8217;re prone to scream at nurses in the operating room, you may want to lower your voice come January 2009. That&#8217;s when the Joint Commission will implement a new standard  on curbing disruptive behavior.
&#8220;Safety and quality thrive in a work environment that supports team work and respect for other people, regardless of their [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/joint-commission-new-standards/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Google&#8217;s personal health record marches on</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The federal government wants to build a national network for health data, but Google already has a nascent network in place in the form of its free personal health record called Google Health. Last week this private-sector network got a little bigger when Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts announced that its members will be able to import [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/googles-personal/</link>
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		<title>Senate bill to boost doctor pay fails key vote</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A partisan battle over changes to Medicare stalled a bill that would prevent a 10.6% doctor pay cut and trim Medicare Advantage, private insurer’s version of Medicare, reports The Wall Street Journal&#8217;s blog on health.
]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/doctor-pay-fails-key-vote/</link>
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		<title>The missing link in quality care</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Everyone these days seems interested in improving quality of care, a major focus of both government and private pay-for-performance initiatives. But, as physicians know all too well, quality improvement is a collaborative effort, a partnership between patient and provider. Here’s a brief news story that talks about what patients can do to help make that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/improving-quality-of-care/</link>
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		<title>Baucus introduces Medicare physician payment fix</title>
		<description><![CDATA[No one has to remind you that Medicare fees are set to automatically decline by 10.6 percent on July 1. In a move to stave off the big cut, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced legislation late Friday afternoon, legislation that could set the stage for a clash with the White House and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/medicare-physician-payment-fix/</link>
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		<title>Is it time to talk about CAM?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health, has launched Time to Talk, a campaign to encourage patients and their physicians to discuss healthcare systems, practices, and products that are not presently considered to be part of conventional medicine, such as herbal supplements, meditation, naturopathy, and acupuncture. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/alternative-medicine/</link>
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		<title>NC doctors fight malpractice disclosure website</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A group of physicians in North Carolina is opposing the state medical board&#8217;s plan to post doctors&#8217; malpractice information on its website. As noted in an article in Fierce Healthcare, a newsletter for healthcare executives, &#8220;While the North Carolina Medical Board says the move would be a public service, the North Carolina Medical Society says [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/nc-malpractice-information-disclosure/</link>
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		<title>Primary care doctors are disappearing</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Joseph B. Martin, former dean of Harvard Medical School, bemoans the lack of new primary care doctors, and offers suggestions for how to increase that number in coming years.
Read his article in The Boston Globe.
]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/primary-care-shortage/</link>
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		<title>Physician-author cites flaws in palliative care</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The medical community does a poor job of delivering end-of-life-care and helping patients die. Nor does it do a good job in helping them live, Kenneth Fisher, a physician and primary author of a new book, &#8220;In Defiance of Death: Exposing the Real Costs of End-of-Life Care&#8221; (Praeger Publishers), told the Kalamazoo Gazette.
]]></description>
		<link>http://blogs.memag.com/end-of-life-care/</link>
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