Musings of a Distractible Mind
Thoughts of an odd, but not harmful primary care physician.
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 [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.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 [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.In a well-publicized and well-written article in the New Yorker, Atul Gawande (one of my doctor writing heroes) talks about his visit to the popular restaurant, The Cheesecake Factory, and how that visit got him thinking about the sad state of health care. The chain serves more than eighty million people per year. I pictured [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.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 [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.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 [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.I got an unusual request last week. I written a prescription of a generic medication (which has been generic for a couple of years) and the prescription was denied by the insurance carrier. The reason for denial: I had to try a brand-name medication first. Stop. Read that again. They wouldn’t allow me to give [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.“The specialist rescheduled me again,” the patient told me, looking embarrassed. ”I think he doesn’t want to see me any more.” “I’m sure that it isn’t that he doesn’t want to see you,” I replied. ”This has to be a miscommunication with the front desk. It happens all the time; it drives doctors crazy.” “I [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.I love the GPS analogy for health care. Patients need a GPS for their health, showing them the reality of their past, present, and future health. The analogy has not only shown me how I want to give care for my patients, it has also given me insight into the pitfalls of automated medical care. Way [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.OK, I am an EMR geek who isn’t so thrilled with the direction of EMR. So what, I have been asked, would make EMR something that is really meaningful? What would be the things that would truly help, and not just make more hoops for me to jump through? A lot of this is not [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.Eric Topol wrote a post recently put up on The Health Care Blog where he looks to a future enabled by emerging technology. Just as the little mobile wireless devices radically transformed our day-to-day lives, so will such devices have a seismic impact on the future of health care. It’s already taking off at a pace [...]
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This material, written by me, is free to re-post and share under the Creative Commons agreement. In other words, use it all you want; just give me credit.
Llamaricks