California’s decision to restrict the use of the title “doctor” in clinical settings underscores a growing disconnect between healthcare policy and the realities of modern care delivery. In an op-ed, health policy professor and former Virginia legislator, Dawn M. Adams, DNP, and Marissa J. Levine, MD, a public health physician and former Virginia health commissioner, argue that rigid physician-centric hierarchies no longer reflect how patients actually receive care.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced four more guilty pleas on Thursday, bringing the total to 12. The scheme involved providers paying kickbacks to patients, all employees of Amtrak, in exchange for billing their insurance for unnecessary medical care. The incidents happened between 2019 and 2022. 

The cyberattack was not discovered until October 2025, and a headcount of the victims is still being conducted. In the meantime, a patient of Sacramento-based One Community Health argues in a lawsuit that the nonprofit health system failed to secure his data, as required by law. The complaint is seeking class action status. 

The goal was to turn imaging surveillance into a routine part of post-surgical care, rather than an optional step.

Last month, the Republican and Democratic Doctors Caucuses sent an informal request to medical societies, seeking ways to reform Medicare’s push toward value-based care.