Every chance I get, I do a grand rounds with pediatricians and other PCPs to promote what you might call Allergy & Asthma 201, and also welcome as many residents as is practical for rotations in my office. The reason is straightforward—I have plenty of new patients who need the specialty care that an allergist can provide — both my accountant and I are happy to have them — but …
How an allergy specialist reaches out to PCPs
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to comment on Dr. Karen Sibert’s recent op-ed piece in the New York Times. She argues that, especially given the current shortage of primary care doctors in this country, being part of the medical profession confers one with the moral obligation to serve and, as such, conflicting interests, such as raising a family, should take lower priority. I worked …
How much medical care are doctors obliged to provide?
Any primary care clinic has a schedule that lists the appointments of the day in incremental time slots. There is a column for the name of the patient, the patient’s age, and always there is a place for the reason for the visit–the “chief complaint” according to medical parlance.
A quick review of the “chief complaints” for the day gives the physician a sense of how clinic will flow. There are the seemingly “quick” concerns, …
Hidden meanings behind the chief complaint
A guest column by the American Medical Association, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
Billions of dollars in administrative waste would be eliminated each year if health insurers sent a timely, accurate and specific response to each physician claim, and while this year’s AMA National Health Insurer Report Card shows promising improvements in denial rates, more work needs to be done.
The AMA’s fourth annual check-up …
AMA: Health insurers’ denial rates are down, but error rates are up
The nature of an average child’s free time has changed. For the past 25 years kids have been spending decreasing amounts of time outdoors. The time that our kids do spend outdoors is frequently a part of an organized sports activity. Other activities taking up our children’s time include indoor lessons and organized events such as music, art and dance lessons. Another big indoor activity, taking up to 7.5 …
Why children need more unstructured play
The majority of new job openings for physicians are now as hospital employees, not in private practice.
This is the new reality for both residents facing the employment landscape and seasoned physicians looking for better opportunities. In their 2011 Review of Physician Recruiting Incentives, Texas-based national physician search firm Merritt Hawkins confirmed that private practice scenarios are giving way to doctors being directly employed by hospitals, large health systems, and medical groups.
As …
How the landscape of physician hiring is changing
Is Dr. X a good doctor?
Being a doctor, I often hear this question being asked. More often than not, the response that I hear is a rather clear cut one, “oh yes, Dr. X is a great doctor,” or “oh no, Dr. X is not a good doctor,” making me wonder what such a definite response is based upon. Is it based on actual facts? Is it based on …
Clinical competence, and whether a doctor is good, or not
In 2009 I posted a blog here on videotaping of surgeries and the issues and challenges this would present. I did not say I am in favor of this as a means of policing medical practice, but for documenting surgeries the technology can be very useful. I do video as many of my surgeries as I can, and I offer to show these recordings when appropriate to my patients. …
Implications when technology catches up with medical practice
I was getting ready for the day, my 2 1/2 year old was watching Sesame Street. In the show, the segments change every few minutes or so and seem to weave old-school 1970′s content (familiar to me) with newly created vignettes that have a modern feel and construction. I like it nearly as much as the boys. One of the stories this morning was about tooth fairies. An animated group …
A TV should not be allowed in a child’s bedroom
Sure you are comfortable with your current doctor, after all you are still alive and kicking. Besides it has taken you years to figure out what you can safely tell your doctor and when it’s ok to speak up.
Yes, the fact that your doctor is often late and never seems to listen to you bothers you just a little. You aren’t displeased enough to stop giving your doctor high Read more…
Why patients should change their doctor
In the Chicago Tribune recently, Bruce Japsen has an excellent article addressing Accountable Care Organizations, quality of care issues, and the change in how physicians will be paid in the future.
Clearly, the government and insurers have decided that physicians will not be paid for services rendered. Physicians will be paid based on patient outcomes and will share in any losses insurers sustain due to poor patient outcomes. There are …
Being a physician is an incredibly rewarding and fulfilling profession. I’ve been a physician for over 20 years and I still find joy in my work because I’ve learned to adapt to the changes we are experiencing in the medical field. And, I’ve use the tips I’m sharing with you to operate the best medical practice and provide the best health care possible.
Know the “99” codes like the back of …
5 ways to succeed as a new provider, guaranteed
I love being a family physician. If I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t change a thing.
I love the breadth of family medicine. I love being able to take care of just about every person that walks through the door. Even when another doctor is the right person to take care of a niche need, I love knowing that I was usually the person that …
Why I love being a family physician
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According to Wikipedia, up to the beginning of the 19th century there had been only 3 occupations that were considered to be professions, Divinity, Medicine and Law.
A profession is considered a trade or occupation that transforms itself through “the development of formal qualifications based upon education, apprenticeship, and examinations, the emergence of regulatory bodies with powers to admit, discipline members, and enforce adherence to an ethical code of practice.”
Professionals are …
The professional status of physicians is at risk
It was a beautiful Monday morning in May. Yawning uncontrollably, I hopped into a Ford Hybrid with my attending and drove off to visit a patient who lived two hours away from our hospital. I woke up especially early that morning since we knew the commute would take many hours.
We drove past open fields and a few cows before pulling into a driveway of a lovely house with a cute …
From the brink of hospice to awaiting a reading machine
by Larry Cohen
When Florida Governor Rick Scott recently signed legislation barring doctors from asking about gun safety practices in the homes of their child patients, it sounded the alarm that physicians’ roles in community prevention are chronically misunderstood. Rather than restricting doctors’ options for involvement in prevention, we should be supporting and expanding them.
Community prevention is the creation of physical and social environments that …
Doctor support critical in the fight for community prevention
by W. Gregory Feero, MD, PhD
The 10-year anniversary of the publication of the sequence of the human genome offers primary care physicians a look into how they can incorporate genomic advances into clinical care in the next decade.
The National Institutes of Health celebrated the 10th anniversary of the publication of the sequence of the human genome and the subsequent remarkable burst of scientific and clinical …
How physicians can incorporate genomic advances into clinical care
There is no question that bank failure, credit problems, and other issues create a situation where people find it necessary to make payments in cash, only.
While you will never need to worry about this money clearing for payment, it is still important to be aware of some of the risks associated with taking cash payments. In most cases, once you address these issues, you …
What cash only practices should be careful of when taking payments
It’s well known that there is a shortage of primary care physicians which is only going to get worse over time.
To address this problem, Dr. Peter Bach, the director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and Dr. Robert Kocher, a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, propose making medical school free. They argue that medical students would be more likely to choose primary …
Fixing primary care requires more than free medical school
by Sara Billings, RN
I believe knowledge is power. There is no more complex topic in the healthcare debate than end-of-life care. I have been a Registered Nurse for thirty years. I deal with this every day. All of us will confront this issue eventually. When it’s your turn, I hope the medical profession will guide you to the best options for you and your family.
Often I see patients who have …
Our health system defaults toward treatment rather than compassion
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