Physicians writing on KevinMD about running a practice: staffing and overhead, the payer paperwork that arrives with every patient, ownership and consolidation, the administrators and executives who now employ most physicians, and the models physicians have built to get out from under all of it. Four maintained records draw on this archive: Primary care: what physicians say, in their own words, Direct primary care: what physicians say, in their own words, Physicians and administrators: what physicians say about who runs medicine, in their own words, and Private equity and corporate medicine: what physicians say, in their own words.
There are a lot of unhappy physicians in a lot of bad situations. I know because I write for them, and they write to me. The thing is, we deal with patient satisfaction all day long. Why not work harder on physician satisfaction? I want my colleagues to have a higher “physician satisfaction score.”
So first off, what makes us dissatisfied? What lowers that score for the hard-working physicians of America, …
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It’s time we take physician satisfaction seriously
Trust me: The time you spend thinking about your personal statement before you start writing will make the actual writing process much, much easier.
Before you even start writing a word, spend some time reading personal statement examples. Read good ones, read bad ones, read strange ones. The reason for this is to give you an intrinsic idea of what you personally liked and didn’t like. Moreover, you will begin to …
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Pause before writing your personal statement
When I mentioned to a colleague and mentee that I would be writing this article, she expressed excitement about it and felt it would be well received by many physicians who might have given up their art — their form of creative expression — for the sake of medicine.
I had recently been encouraging her to continue her passion for writing. Sometimes we need others to encourage us to “keep calm …
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Physicians have a right to pursue creativity
This article concerns what I call the poor conversationalist. There are several common versions of this, and all of them have corresponding parallels in nonmedical settings. Often the most basic difficulty is one of manner. A good conversationalist is a person who, no matter what he is thinking, outwardly projects an air of interest in what the other person is saying. The doctor who acts distracted, hurried, or even uninterested …
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The physician who is a poor conversationalist
I think the time has come for us all to do a little more than put our 2 cents in.
Our health care system is a mess, and while many of us fighting in the trenches and taking care of patients are working to make things better (despite the best efforts of much of the rest of the system), the challenges and …
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What do we want our health care system to look like?
You’re finishing your training this year and finally have a job. Never mind the fact that you have never had a “real” paying job and this is the first time you’re going to have more money left at the end of the month. And I’m not talking about a little bit of money left over; you’re going to be making 5-10x your current salary.
I have buddies finishing this year in …
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Finished medical training? Get your finances in order. Now.
As someone who can’t stop talking about passive income investments, I inevitably end up having a lot of conversations about investing in real estate.
I’ve heard countless stories of how real estate investing has helped people achieve their goals, but from those who don’t invest, I often hear this objection commonly voiced, “I don’t want to be called in the middle of the night to unclog a toilet.”
What I …
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What physicians should know about investing in real estate
My friend and practice advisor showed me two very negative anonymous reviews of my practice this week. Both were posted within a one-month winter period and were written about family members. They were not written by patients.
My staff and I tried diligently to identify the stated situations as they did not resonate with any of us. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. That frustrates each of us.
Combined, these reviews were aggressive and …
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Do not take online physician reviews at face value
In the 1960s, Lew Goldberg showed that a physician’s intuition and judgment can be fatally flawed. Interestingly, the same fatal flaw that was exposed by Goldberg is the same fatal flaw that causes some of the biggest financial mistakes that doctors make with money. Why aren’t doctors rich? Psychology has an interesting explanation that everyone should understand.
Tag along as we dive into the mind of physicians …
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Why aren’t doctors rich?
Thanks to the internet, collaboration has never been so easy. If you need to learn about how to install a new irrigation system in your lawn, the resources are a few clicks away. You just need the time and motivation to make happen. On the medicine front, there has never been a time in the recent past (aside from a failed managed care push in the 1990s) that doctors have …
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Doctors shouldn’t have to find side gigs. Here’s why many do.
Recently, I wrote about some key findings from a 2018 survey of U.S. physicians by The Physicians Foundation. It’s no surprise to anyone working in health care today that the survey found alarming levels of professional dissatisfaction, burnout, and pessimism about the future of medicine among respondent physicians. Sadly, it appears that much of that pessimism is directed toward hospitals and their leaders: 46 percent of survey respondents viewed …
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How physicians and administrators can get to a place of greater trust
Many people look at their 401(k) like it is a piggy bank. Since they often don’t have any other savings, when they need a lump sum of money for a large purchase, the only account they have with a decent balance is their retirement account.
Since most people are not saving outside of their retirement plan, many people end up with an empty checking account, an empty savings account, no emergency …
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Your 401(k) is not a piggy bank
There are only three valid reasons to file an extension on your taxes, which changes your required filing date from April 15th to October 15th. Unfortunately, I see many people who have filed an extension incorrectly or for the wrong reason that end up getting billed by the IRS for interest and penalties. There is no reason anyone should have to pay penalties for late tax filing since correctly filing for …
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These are the only 3 reasons to file a tax extension
If you’re like me, or one of the millions of med students with student loan debt, you need a plan on how to repay it. Learning about the different loan servicers, repayment plans, and complex financial terms can be a bit daunting. As a graduating med student, I understand your plight. Here are some simple steps to help you tackle your student loan debt:
Step 1: Figure out how much student loan …
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6 steps to tackle student loan debt in residency
There was a recent news brief stating that the average internist generates about $2.4 million annually for the hospitals that they work for. While it’s no surprise that doctors help others make money, seeing a figure to your worth hammers home how much we sustain the health care system, often at our own expense.
This means that a hospitalist making $240,000 …
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It’s important to understand the money trail in medicine
Almost a couple of years ago, I decided that I would act out on a desire that I’d had for some time: to learn to swing dance (specifically, Lindy Hop). Going back to when I was in high school in England, I’ve always had an interest in 1920s America, that started during our history classes. I find it a fascinating time of enormous progress (and for so many a big roaring …
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5 lessons this physician learned from swing dancing
Work-life balance is hard, and that’s true for so many career options both in and out of the medical field. The topic is something that you consider as you choose a career path. It’s something that you struggle to achieve and maintain as you train for your job, and as I have found out over the past eight months, something that you have to invest energy into after finishing training …
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Work-life balance is hard. Here’s how this physician does it.
Health care organizations are moving to address clinician burnout with a real sense of urgency. It is now commonly accepted that burnout is widespread among health care professionals and has serious repercussions for patient safety and the quality of care. A report released by several major Massachusetts health care organizations labeled the situation “a public health crisis” and warned about the adverse impact “on the health and well-being …
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Innovative approaches to solve physician burnout
