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Over the past few years and as we move into the future, many rural and critical access hospitals throughout the country have continued to struggle when it comes to rising costs of care and decreased reimbursements, as well as the recruitment and retention of high-quality clinicians and staff, among other challenges.

Ardis Dee Hoven, MD President-elect, American Medical Association Medical director, Bluegrass Care Clinic Lexington, Ky.

Fraud remains a stubborn and growing problem for the U.S. healthcare industry, raising costs for patients and cutting sharply into margins for insurance payers. Of the more than $2.5 trillion spent on healthcare in the United States annually, some $60 billion to $250 billion is lost to fraud, waste and abuse, according to industry experts. Organized crime groups and a small minority of healthcare providers commit most healthcare fraud, reports the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association.

As the acquisition of physician practices has once again become a hot topic, hospitals may be considering payment for certain intangible assets. For regulatory purposes, these transactions must remain consistent with the fair market value (FMV) standard under the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute.

At the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s ANI conference in Las Vegas in late June, I had the pleasure of attending a keynote speech given by Captain Chesley Sullenberger, the pilot who successfully landed a plane on the Hudson River in January 2009, saving the lives of the 155 people on board.

The obesity epidemic in the U.S. will eventually bankrupt the nation if left unchecked, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, which held a webcast June 5 to outline its recommendations for curbing the crisis.

The obesity epidemic in the U.S. will eventually bankrupt the nation if left unchecked, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, which held a webcast June 5 to outline its recommendations for curbing the crisis.

When politics gets in the way of policy, you end up with the situations like what is happening now in Texas and Louisiana, where Governors Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal, respectively, both strident and vocal Republican opponents of "ObamaCare," are on the record as saying they will not expand Medicaid in their states. This despite the fact the expansion will be funded at 100 percent by the federal government through 2016 and at no less than 90 percent in ensuing years.

David Rinehart, MD, a primary care physician at CaroMont Health Southpoint in Belmont, N.C., learned the importance of accountable care in just one patient visit. "I was seeing a 55-year-old patient who told me 'I'm doing much better now.' I was shocked to discover that he had recently been hospitalized for a perforated gastric ulcer, but we had no record of that - no fax from the hospital or anything. That's something that's just too important to not get communicated."