Online house calls click with doctors

Consulting your family physician is finally moving into the 21st century and out of the doctor's office. Since the dawn of e-mail, patients have been pleading for more doctors to offer medical advice online. No traffic jams, no long waits, no germ-infested offices with outdated magazines and bad elevator music. There was always one major roadblock: Most health insurers wouldn't pay for it. Until now.

Paying for Care Episodes and Care Coordination (Karen Davis, NEJM)

The fee-for-service system of provider payment is increasingly viewed as an obstacle to achieving effective, coordinated, and efficient care. It rewards the overuse of services, duplication of services, use of costly specialized services, and involvement of multiple physicians in the treatment of individual patients. It does not reward the prevention of hospitalization or rehospitalization, effective control of chronic conditions, or care coordination.