May 12th, 2010 by BobDoherty in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
Tags: 15-Minute Office Visit, ACP, American College Of Physicians, Barriers to Independent Practice, Better Outcomes, Christine Sinsky, David Margolius, Family Medicine, Health Affairs, Healthcare reform, Internal Medicine, Joel Howell, Lack of Primary Care, Lawrence Casalino, National Health Reform, Patient-Centered Medical Home, PCMH, Physician Income, Primary Care Crisis, Primary Care Doctors, Primary Care Medicine, Primary Care Physicians, Primary Care Shortage, Reinvent Primary Care, Rugged Individualists, Susan Dentzer, Team-Based Primary Care, Thomas Bodenheimer, Transformed
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“Bold changes are needed in how the United States delivers and pays for primary care if the key goals of national health reform are to be achieved,” according to the health policy journal Health Affairs, which has released a thematic issue devoted entirely to the crisis in primary care.
(The complete articles are available only to subscribers, but Health Affairs’ blog has a good summary.)
I have spent much of the day reading the journal — 47 articles, and a combined 300 pages of text. Here are my “take-home” messages from the articles. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
May 12th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Research
Tags: Busy, Doctor-Patient Communication, Emails, Face-To-Face, Family Medicine, General Medicine, Internal Medicine, Medicare, NEJM, New England Journal of Medicine, Patient Outreach, Physician Productivity, Physician Responsibility, Primary Care Crisis, Primary Care Doctors, Primary Care Medicine, Primary Care Shortage, Private Health Insurers, Telephone Calls, Uncompensated Care, Undocumented Tasks
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There’s been a lot of commentary on a recent article from the New England Journal of Medicine, detailing the undocumented tasks that a typical primary care physician performs.
For those who haven’t read the piece, entitled, What’s Keeping Us So Busy in Primary Care? A Snapshot from One Practice, it’s available free at the NEJM website. I highly recommend it.
To summarize, primary care doctors are responsible for much more than seeing patients in the exam room. In the cited practice, which has a fairly typical makeup, physicians were responsible for an average of over 23 telephone calls and 16 e-mails per day. Many practices don’t engage their patients over e-mail, so it’s conceivable that the number of telephone calls is lower than average here. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
May 12th, 2010 by AlanDappenMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Primary Care Wednesdays, True Stories
Tags: Adjustments In Care, Co-Pay, Cutting Healthcare Costs, Diagnosis, DocTalker, Doctor Office Delays, Dr. Alan Dappen, Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate, ESR, Face-To-Face, Family Medicine, General Medicine, Good Medical Decision Making, Healthcare Economics, Healthcare System, Internal Medicine, Medicare, Office Visits, Phone Call, Physical Exam, Prednisone, Primary Care, TA, Telemedicine, Temporal Arteritis
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A common problem in healthcare is the number of times that small adjustments are needed in a person’s care. Often for these little changes, a physical exam and face-to-face time have nothing to do with good medical decision making.
Yet the patient and doctor are locked in a legacy-industrialized business model that requires the patient to pay a co-pay and waste at least half of their day driving to and from the office, logging time in a waiting room, and then visiting five minutes with their practitioner for the needed medical information or advice.
Today I’d like to visit the case of a patient I’ll call “DD,” who I easily diagnosed with temporal arteritis (TA) through a 15-minute phone call after she’d spent four weeks as the healthcare system fumbled her time with delays and misdirection via several doctors without establishing a firm diagnosis. Read more »
May 11th, 2010 by Maria Gifford in Announcements, Better Health Network, Medblogger Shout Outs
Tags: Better Health, Call For Submissions, Grand Rounds
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Grand Rounds will be hosted by Better Health on Tuesday, May 18th, 2010.
Please send your medical blog submissions via email by 12:00AM midnight CDT on Sunday, May 16th, to: maria.gifford@getbetterhealth.com.
Please include:
- “Submission for Grand Rounds” in the subject line of your email.
- Your name (blog author), the name of your blog, and the URL of your specific blog submission.
- A short summary (1-3 sentences) of your blog post.
(NOTE: There is no specific theme for this session of Grand Rounds.)
For more information, please see the Grand Round Submissions Guidelines. We look forward to receiving your submissions and featuring them here next week.
May 11th, 2010 by JessicaBerthold in Better Health Network, Health Tips, Opinion
Tags: Caregivers, Checklist, Discharge Planning, Family Medicine, General Medicine, Health Care Setting, Hospitalist Medicine, Hospitals, Inpatient, Internal Medicine, Medicare, Nursing Home, Patient Guide, Primary Care
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Medicare has a handy guide to help patients and their caregivers take control of the discharge planning process. It might be good for hospitals to have a stack of these at the ready and a plan to make sure every patient gets one:
Planning for your discharge: A checklist for patients and caregivers preparing to leave a hospital, nursing home, or other health care setting
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Hospitalist*
