Last week, Medscape released its annual Physician Compensation Report for 2020. The report’s data was collected prior to February 10, 2020 and therefore reflects physician income before the United States’ COVID-19 crisis. However, according to the report, practices have seen, on average, a 55% decrease in revenue and 60% decrease in patient volume since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, remote patient engagement (e.g., telehealth) has increased 225%.

Requests for leaves of absence have become more common in recent years, and it is important for medical staffs to have clear policies regarding their use. A member of the medical staff may request a leave of absence for personal reasons (e.g., the birth of a child, illness of a family member, participation in an extended mission project overseas, to pursue additional education, to fulfill required military services), or it may be necessary for the member to comply with mandated participation in an impaired practitioner program.

Have an all-star MSP on your team? We want to know! Email CRC editor Karla Accorto at kaccorto@hcpro.com with their name, organization, email address, and a few sentences about what makes them such a great MSP and team member. Your nominated MSP could be featured in an upcoming issue of our Credentialing Resource Center Digest!

The bedrock of the medical staff due process manual is a federal statute named the Health Care Quality Improvement Act of 1986 (HCQIA). As with many laws and statutes, a specific case triggered HCQIA. The story is worth repeating as it highlights what constitutes good-faith and bad-faith peer review. The case is also important because HCQIA gave rise to the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), a continuing source of confusion and vexation for medical staffs that are considering taking corrective actions against a colleague.