by Diana E. Lee Most of the resources I’ve read about how to prepare for a doctor’s appointment recommend bringing a loved one with you so that person can help you remember what the doctor said and make sure you get your questions and concerns addressed. But when I read Paula Kamen’s [...]

by Thomas Sullivan Howard Brody, a family physician, recently wrote an article in the Annals of Family Medicine discussing, “Professional Medical Organizations and Commercial Conflicts of Interest: Ethical Issues.” The article focused on how AAFP has “recently been criticized for accepting a large corporate donation from Coca-Cola to fund patient education and materials on obesity [...]

by Mike Koriwchak, MD After 5 successful years with electronic medical records (EMR), I am convinced that the promise of EMR to improve physician practices and to improve the health care system is real. If that is true, why is adoption of EMR currently limited to only 5-10% of medical practices?  Why is [...]

by an anonymous physician Recently, Danielle Ofri had a piece in the NEJM about medical report cards. You know, those computer generated reports that tell you how many of your patients have achieved normal blood pressures and normal cholesterols and so on. Dr. Ofri concluded her piece by shoving her most recent report [...]

by Bob Doherty Is the pen mightier than the PC? When it comes to prescribing, it appears so. A new report from the Center for Studying Health System Change finds that most physicians write their RX scripts by hand, despite financial incentives for physicians to adopt electronic prescribing. Even those who have [...]

by William R. Yates, MD The Alzheimer’s Association sponsors a journal titled Alzheimer’s & Dementia.  In the March 2010 issue, they provide a report on facts and figures related to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). I’m a sucker for data so I spent some time going through the manuscript and here are some of the [...]

by Jeffrey Knuppel, MD If you had asked me what I thought forgiveness was when I was a young adult, I probably would have said that it is something you do for others—others who have wronged you in some way, to give them a break and let them know that you are no [...]

by Liz O’Brien A long time ago — when managed care-style employee healthcare benefits were a new thing — we worker bees learned we might have to throw our old family doc under the bus. We were given a booklet of providers on the network panel, and if the faithful retainer who had served [...]

by Emmanuel King, MD What if you could improve patient safety, cut costs, broaden your medical knowledge and find 20% more time in your workday?  On October 1, 2010, that is just what we can expect when clinical pharmacists move from the back room to the bedside in ten general medical units at the Hospital [...]

by Chris Nickson, MB ChB Treat the patient, not the disease. Care more particularly for the individual patient than for the especial features of the disease. — William Osler We enter medical school eager to help the sick and the dying. Over the years this golden objective is transmuted into the base lead [...]

Effectively controlling costs in a medical practice essentially means controlling personnel costs.

My wife, Rika, has completed six years of excruciating residency, passed the board exam the first time that she took it and is completing a similarly demanding medical toxicology fellowship now. She is raising our two beautiful children, works in a dangerous, hostile, challenging inner city ER, teaches, does research, refuses to hire a housekeeper yet keeps the house running like clockwork and puts up with me and all my crap.

Our July/August story titled “Is Board Certification Overrated?” generated a lot of great letters to the Physicians Practice office, some of which you can read in our September issue. But with too many letters to print and not enough space, we wanted to expand the conversation.

I have mixed emotions about constricting resident work hours even further. I understand the rationale, and certainly in a perfect world, no one would ever work fatigued. But, in our imperfect world, maybe there is some logic to (borrowing a phrase from the military) train like you fight.

Remember that old childhood rhyme? How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Well, here’s a new one. How many patients can a doc squeeze in if a doc could squeeze them in?

E-mail is not for every physician. Legal concerns and HIPAA compliance are perceived barriers to using e-mail. They are excuses. There are, however, practical reasons that prevent most docs from considering e-mail.

The wife of actor Michael Douglas recently said she was “furious” that doctors did not locate and treat her husband’s throat cancer earlier, indicating it would have improved his chance of survival. The Oscar-winner’s diagnosis shocked many, both because of who he is and because what was initially thought to be a sore throat turned out to be something far worse.

As I looked out on my audience of uniformed physicians and nurses, the stories of destroyed lives and war ran through my mind and I thought, “Does anybody besides the military remember that we are fighting two wars?”

Why do I do these things? Honestly, the reason why is that it is the path of least resistance. I don’t want my kids to be singled out in school for having (gasp!) unlabeled crayons and I don’t want to be singled out by the nursing staff as a difficult or unsafe doctor. So, I go with the flow.

Today doctors are competing for patients in a radically changed marketplace. One of the most important emerging technologies in that space is Internet-based social networking.

Trying to decide which state to practice in? Our guide to state-level conditions affecting physicians’ wallets will help you choose wisely.

The addition of a camera to cell phones years ago changed the devices completely and now they could change the way some doctors diagnose their patients’ maladies.

Pediatrician Sandy L. Chung on getting schooled in the business of medicine during her first year of practice.

Here are your latest coding questions, answered by coding expert Bill Dacey.

When a doctor writes a prescription for pain medications or other narcotics, does his or her responsibility stop once their signature is complete? A California physician thinks so and is defending herself against a criminal investigation alleging her of improperly dispensing the drugs, which in some cases led to overdose deaths of some of her patients.

Wasn’t it about a month ago that I was carrying on about howI felt disrespected? Wasn’t it just a week or two ago that I said that life is good and that I shouldn’t complain? And now here I am with this week’s list of things that just plain irked me.

What is your dress code policy?  Do you have one?  Having a dress code policy is important for some employees, it becomes a constant problem and this can affect the overall image of your practice.  Instead of a policy that is detailed and specific, try to make it more about the overall image of your [...]

You would be naive to think that all everyone is honest when they fill out a job application, especially when it asks if the applicant has been convicted of a felony.  They may think that they will not be hired if they answer truthfully.  Employers should perform a criminal background check on applicants to be [...]

As a telecommuting practice manager, you are responsible for ensuring that working virtually fits your office environment.  A complete review should be conducted after 90 days of telecommuting.  If problems aren’t promptly corrected, productivity will wane, morale will suffer, and most importantly, your physicians/owners will be disillusioned and upset.  With that in mind, here are [...]

Patients who are no-shows for their doctors’ appointments cause efficiency problems and irritation for many practice managers, as well as increase expenses for the practice.  No-show fees can be a deterrent, but they don’t guarantee compliance with scheduled appointments.  Many practices either have receptionists call patients with appointment reminders, take their chances and deal with [...]

Practice managers who take advantage of the option to work virtually, whether part-time or full-time, often wonder how they will stay in the loop at work when they are physically out of the office. Managing employees, participating in meetings, and staying informed about issues and changes is a greater challenge when you spend some or [...]

If you’ve received permission to telecommute in your position as practice manager, either part-time or full-time, on a trial basis or permanently, you’ll want to make the right impression so the owner/physician who gave consent will feel good about the decision.  Whether you continue telecommuting long-term or not, it’s important for your supervisors to have [...]

If you’ve investigated the option of telecommuting your practice manager position and think it might work, you’re probably at least somewhat apprehensive about the next step – proposing the idea to the owners/physicians at your workplace.  The first and most important rule is to be thoroughly prepared.  This article, the second in our series on [...]

Telecommuting, also known as working from home or from a virtual office, is an attractive prospect to many practice managers. Avoiding a lengthy and irritating commute is a top motivator for practice managers who work in large, crowded cities with heavy rush-hour traffic. And working from home often raises productivity by offering blocks of uninterrupted [...]

A happy staff makes for happy patients, and happy patients means more business. You will also find that employees are more productive, and you will be more likely to retain them, which will save you the time and cost of training new workers. Putting a little more time and effort into keeping everyone happy is [...]

Physicians’ offices are hotbeds of patient information – not just medical records, but insurance and other financial data – that must be kept secure.  The amount of data is increasing, and so are incidences of information pilfering, identity theft, and fraud.  At the same time that the amount of recorded data is going up, medical [...]