Physician practices can expect Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to step up quality of care efforts. The health care reform law incentivizes MA plans to boost quality ratings by 2012.

The Kaiser Family Foundation (pdf) wrote an issue brief about the new bonus program. MA plans will receive extra payments when they achieve four or more quality stars out of five. The plans are graded on effectiveness, a consumer assessment, a health outcomes survey and CMS administrative data. CMS data includes statistics on appeals, audit results and customer service.  

Current rankings show some states have MA plans with better scores than other states.

Read more on Medicare Advantage plans

Smartphones and other mobile devices, such as tablet PCs, are seeing increasing use by everyone -- especially physicians. Around 63% of physicians report using a mobile device for health solutions in treating patients, usually as a handy data or reference source, according to a survey of 1,000 physicians by PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PWC).

Of these physicians, 56% said their devices "expedite decision making" and 40% said they "decrease time spent on administration."

The main advantage of using mobile technology in the practice setting is faster decisions, driven by accessing more accurate data in real time, the PWC survey concludes. Timely access to the right information was consistently cited as the top challenge to physicians, survey respondents said (read more on mobile health solutions) ...

Hospitalists with lower base salaries outperformed hospitalists with higher base salaries, a Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) and Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) survey shows.

Adult hospitalists who received 50% or less of their compensation as fixed base salary reported the highest median work relative value units (RVUs) at 5,407, the MGMA and SHM says. The study showed other hospitalists who:

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has turned to health care providers for help in curbing the amount of pharmaceuticals making their way into the nation's water supply.

This "60 Minutes" report aired over the weekend. Steve Kroft's piece on Medicare fraud shows you what is driving Medicare enrollment and program integrity changes over the last few years.

CBS interviewed former CMS official Kim Brandt, who mentioned the agency has tightened its enrollment standards.