My local newspaper prints the You Docs column 3 days a week and I’ve been reading it for over two years. I can’t say I’ve read every column in that time, but I can say most of them. There is a clear pattern to their writing and thinking. In the column...
Read More »

A colleague in private practice, Dr. S of Plano, TX, sent me the following note he gave me permission to share: Since the beginning of 2011, we’ve observed a disturbing trend among our patients’ new insurance plans. At least two major payors (Aetna and Cigna) are now offering $0 or reduced...
Read More »

An article in Health Affairs documented well what all of us know in front-line medicine: patients who don’t feel well go the emergeny room. The study looked at data from a national survey and found that a minority of patients see their primary physicians (42%) for first-contact care, with visits to...
Read More »

Two more recent studies I didn’t mention last week documented how little influence electronic medical records (EMRs) had on outpatient care. One study measured 20 markers of quality between practices with and without EMRs over 255,402 national ambulatory patient visits. 19 of the 20 quality indicators were no different between the...
Read More »

I realize I’ve griped a lot in my previous posts, though I don’t see myself as a nattering nabob of negativism. For problems to be fixed they first must be identified, and our healthcare system has lots of problems. However in this season of giving thanks, I thought a few positive...
Read More »

Is this a joke? A medical school that has no department of family medicine or even a division has been given a $30 million dollar anonymous gift to enhance primary care. This to a medical school that routinely sends less than 2% of its graduates into family medicine? This gift started...
Read More »

When I first stared hearing about the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) concept, I perceived it to be a euphemism. For whatever reason, the concept of primary care or family medicine hasn’t resonated with politicians, corporate benefits managers, or the general public. To me “medical home” was just a warm fuzzy term...
Read More »