A study in the latest Health Affairs took a snapshot of utilization and costs associated with retail clinics. These are the small clinics located in Wal-Mart, CVS, Walgreen’s and the like. They were touted by proponents as low-cost options for primary care. They are usually staffed by nurse practitioners or physician assistants....
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I’ve read several articles recently reporting on a shortage of geriatricians. The writers have some clear misunderstandings of who actually cares for our elderly and where they come from. Susan Jaffe writing for Kaiser Health News stated that the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) estimates that the nation will require 30,000 geriatricians...
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The Texas Academy of Family Physicians recently published a piece I wrote for them on the preliminary results of our P4 curricular innovations at my day job: the John Peter Smith Family Medicine residency. Briefly, the P4 project (Preparing the Personal Physician for Practice) was a national experiment where 14 family...
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Hello again!  I haven’t written anything in a while. No big worries. I moved recently (same town, same neighborhood), but the remodel of the new house has been a mis-adventure and I’ve been living out of boxes and breathing dust for over a month. Things are kind of finally settling down....
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As much as I have given the ologists and other members of the dysfunctional U.S. healthcare system a hard time in previous posts, it’s only fair that I call out bad family medicine as well. I have a great example. I recently saw patient who is relatively new to the area...
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I’m continuing my series on the reasons there are so few family physicians in the U.S. and why the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is a root cause of this deficit. My conclusions are based on recent research on the topic. This specific issue is a detail that actually...
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I’m continuing my series on the reasons there are so few family physicians in the U.S. and why the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is a root cause of this deficit. My conclusions are based on recent research on the topic. If you hired an accountant to do your...
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I’m continuing my series on the reasons there are so few family physicians in the U.S. and why the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is a root cause of this deficit. My conclusions are based on recent research on the topic. Have you ever wondered why doctors tell you...
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I’m continuing my series on the reasons there are so few family physicians in the U.S. and why the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is a root cause of this deficit. My conclusions are based on recent research on the topic. In my last post, I showed how the...
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For the next several weeks, I’ll try to explain to non-physician readers why the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) billing rules create the horrid lack of primary care patients experience when they simply want to find a personal physician. My conclusions are based on recent research on the topic....
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