Arkansas Medical Society

The law was changed as St. Vincent Medical Group faced two lawsuits involving Dr. Leslie Anderson of Lonoke, who was terminated without cause from the practice in 2019 and claimed he wasn’t able to notify his patients about the change. read more >

Act 575 gives automatic approval in many cases for procedures and drugs ordered by physicians who have achieved a 90% standard on previous approvals from insurance providers. read more >

The Feb. 21 cyberattack squeezed cash flow to hospitals and prevented dozens of physicians and pharmacists from collecting millions of dollars’ worth of claims. The full scale of the attack’s damage may not be fully calculated for months. read more >

He is the first Arkansan to hold the position. read more >

Arkansas’ two osteopathic medical schools are flexing their young muscles, sending hundreds of graduates into new residency programs and starting to ease a long-term physicians shortage. read more >

The first two lists contained countywide counts that were hard to believe, to put it mildly. read more >

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the use of telemedicine in Arkansas five years ahead of where it would be otherwise. read more >

Mangan Holcomb Partners/Team SI of Little Rock was a top winner at the recent ARCom Awards for public relations excellence, with finalist entries in 35 of 41 categories and 32 total prizes. read more >

Walmart’s new strategy to help stop opioid abuse isn’t sitting well with some doctors. read more >

After a years-long spree of hospitals eagerly hiring doctors and snapping up medical practices, the fever has broken, but the aftereffects are striking. read more >

Health care professionals in Arkansas are voicing skepticism that bringing managed care organizations into the state-run Medicaid program will stem the rising costs of government-provided health care. read more >

Advocates of capping noneconomic damage awards in lawsuits against health care providers have taken a new tack. They want to amend the Arkansas Constitution instead of making change through the Arkansas Legislature. read more >

Dr. John F. Rians, a fellowship-trained psychiatrist, has been appointed as the medical director and supervising physician of The Stepping Stone, the adult inpatient psychiatric unit at White River Medical Center in Batesville. read more >

A health care resource to help navigate the leadership of the largest Arkansas companies or institutions. read more >

When hospitals buy physician clinics, the results are mixed. But the trend, which is as evident in Arkansas as it is nationally, shows no signs of going away. read more >

Whether thoroughly successful, a total failure or something in between, this much is sure: Roughly a quarter-million Arkansans who did not have health insurance in 2013 are now insured, mostly because of the private option, and this historic deluge of new health care customers bring with them challenges and opportunities. read more >

The Arkansas Medical Society and the Arkansas Hospital Association don’t see eye-to-eye on new legislation that deals with physician peer reviews. Last month, Baptist Health of Little Rock, Mercy Health System of Chesterfield, Missouri, which operates six hospitals in Arkansas, and Washington Regional Medical Center of Fayetteville filed a lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court challenging the constitutionality of the Peer Review Fairness Act of 2013. read more >

Starting Jan. 1, ABCBS will pay physician specialists 15 percent less for the same procedures done by non-specialists, such as family practice doctors, for patients who bought policies through the new health insurance exchange, she said. The new fees won’t apply to the carrier’s current commercial policies or group plans. read more >

Starting in September 2014, a record of all payments that drug companies make to doctors will be publicly available, a situation raising concerns among both physicians and drug companies. read more >

Until last month, the Arkansas Medical Society stayed out of a fight between the Arkansas State Medical Board and doctors who want to sell prescription drugs out of their offices. read more >