I remember going to see the movie “Oliver” in the theater when I was a kid. Since this was my first movie in a theater, my mom made me a treat: a bag full of raisins and chocolate chips (Raisinets for Dutch people) and sent me there with my sister. It was a fine film, with Oliver getting kicked out of the …
American health care: The problem of always wanting more
“Patient engagement.”
What is patient engagement? It sounds like a season of The Bachelor where a doctor dates hot patients. It wouldn’t surprise me if it was. After all, patient engagement is hot; it’s the new buzz phrase for health wonks. There was a even an entire day at the recent HIMSS conference dedicated to patient engagement. I think the next season of The Bachelor should feature a wonk at HIMSS …
This is what patient engagement really is
I’ve been going about this all wrong.
It’s not my dumping of the payment system so I can focus on care over codes, my use of technology to connect better with patients, or my vision of the “collaborative record” that is wrong. It’s the fact that I am doing this without my most important resource: my patients.
I realized this while driving in to work this past week. My first patient was …
Building a true collaborative health record: Ask your patients
It feels like part of me is dying. I am losing something that has been a part of me for nearly 20 years.
I bought in to the idea of electronic records in the early 90′s and was enthusiastic enough to implement in my practice in 1996. My initial motivation was selfish: I am not an organized person by nature (distractible, in case you forgot), and computers do much of the …
Let’s mourn the death an EMR evangelist
It’s been a month since I started my new practice. We are up to nearly 150 patients now, and aside from the cost to renovate my building, our revenue has already surpassed our spending. The reason this is possible is that a cash-pay practice in which 100% of income is paid up front has an incredibly low overhead. My admitted ineptitude at financial complexity has forced me to simplify our …
Successfully starting a direct pay practice: Trickle up economics
For the record: I am a geek. I love technology. I adopted EMR when all the cool kids were using paper. Instead of loitering in the “in” doctors lounge making eyes at the nurses, I was writing clinical content and making my care more efficient. I was getting “meaningful use” out of my EMR even when nobody paid me to do it.
But …
Only one company can deliver the perfect EMR: Google
Since I started my new practice, it’s been an über hectic and very draining time, but I am happy to report that the end of the week was significantly better than the beginning.
Here are some things I am learning.
1. Starting a business is really, really hard. I did my best to make my business as simple as possible, mainly because I understand my own deficiencies when it comes to business-related activities. …
Lessons from starting a new practice from scratch
Ok, I’ll admit it: I had no idea. I thought that the whining and griping by other doctors about EMR was just petulance by a group of people who like to be in charge and who resist change. I thought that they were struggling because of their lack of insight into the real benefits of digital records, instead focusing on their insignificant …
Patients don’t matter as much as payment in our system
It has always been my assumption that my new practice will be as “digital” as possible. No, I am not going into urology, I am talking about computers.
[Waiting for the chuckles to subside]
For at least ten years, I’ve used a digital EKG and spirometer that integrated with our medical record system, taking the data and storing it as meaningful numbers, not just pictures of squiggly lines (which is how EKG’s …
Imagine a doctor actually trying to save money for his patients
“Lance Armstrong is a bad guy who has done some very good things.”
These are the words of a sports radio personality I listened to yesterday. He was obviously commenting on the confession (to my pal Oprah) by Armstrong about his use of performance enhancing drugs. The sportscaster, along with many I heard talk on the subject, were not as upset by the …
Is Lance Armstrong really a bad guy?
Sorry for not posting for a while. It’s not that things have been quiet; they definitely haven’t been.
Here’s the update:
The only way to accomplish big things is to do the little things
I should be encouraged. I was asked to talk on public radio last week about my new practice, then I was on a panel of “experts” in Washington DC on Monday. Everywhere I talk about what I am doing I get positive reactions. I get very positive reactions, actually. I was approached by someone wanting to work with me “when I get …
Can winning the war of words help my patients?
“This could be big,” he said after I told him about the company who wants me to cover their 100+ employees. I pay him to give me the stark reality of things, but his optimism made me uncomfortable. ”You’ve got to go for this. I know you don’t feel ready for it yet, but this could really be huge for your business, and I don’t think you should pass this …
The transition to direct care: Considering the consequences
It seems both ironic and inevitable: I won’t be getting any more “meaningful use” checks. It’s not that I didn’t qualify for the money; I saw plenty of patients on Medicare and met all of the requirements. I was paid for my first year money without much hassle. The problem I am facing is this: I am probably going to be “opting out” of Medicare, and once I do that …
Behind the complex decision to opt out of Medicare
This is my new office. I signed the lease for this property yesterday – another big step in the process of getting my new practice off the ground. I should feel good about this, shouldn’t I? I’ve had people comment that I’ve gotten a whole lot accomplished in the 4 weeks since I’ve been off, but the whole thing is still quite daunting. Yes, there are days I feel good …
Learning to fly and getting my new practice off the ground
My change from a traditional practice to direct-care has caused me to challenge some of the basic assumptions of the care I’ve given up to this point. Certainly, the nature of my documentation will radically change with my freedom from the tyranny of E/M coding requirements.
Perhaps the biggest change in my care comes courtesy of the way I get paid. The traditional way to be paid is for service rendered (either at …
Care on the continuum far surpasses the episodic approach
I grew up in Rochester, NY. Statistically, this means that I probably had a family member who worked at Eastman Kodak, as the company employed over 62,000 people in Rochester at its peak. I did, in fact, have two: my father and my brother-in-law. My brother and I both worked there during two fun and profitable summers of our college years in the delightful “roll coating” division. It actually paid …
What Instagram and Kodak have to do with health reform
Probably the hardest part of making the change from a traditional to a direct-care practice is the effect it has on relationships. I am only taking a maximum of 1000 patients (less at the start) and will be no longer accepting insurance. These changes make it impossible for me to continue in a doctor-patient relationship with most of my patients.
For some, this transition will be more hassle than anything. Some people …
Why I made the change to direct care practice
After 18 years in private practice, many good, some not, I am making a very big change. I am leaving my practice.
No, this isn’t my ironic way of saying that I am going to change the way I see my practice; I am really quitting my job. The stresses and pressures of our current health care system become heavier, and heavier, making it increasingly difficult to practice medicine in a way …
Frustrations with the health care system drove me to a big change
It happened again. I was talking to a particularly sick patient recently who related another bad experience with a specialist.
“He came in and started spouting that he was busy saving someone’s life in the ER, and then he didn’t listen to what I had to say,” she told me. ”I know that he’s a good doctor and all, but he was a real jerk!”
This was a specialist that I hold …
10 reasons for physician burnout
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