Weekend Call

Why Is Our Healthcare System Crazy? Monty Python Knows The process of providing care for patients in America can often resemble the best skits from a popular British comedy series. Will the upcoming elections in the United States lighten or darken the mood?
July 27, 2016
The Hidden Value of a Patient's Social History Remembering a wedding anniversary can be just as important to a patient as recalling a past surgery, the author says. Here's what you gain by including nonmedical details in your charts.
June 22, 2016
Keeping Your Friends: How to Retain Patients Information from your patients can help you to build a practice that is more satisfying for you and them and that also operates more effectively.
April 29, 2016
Technology: Finding the Right Balance Computers, smartphones, and other technologies can be overly intrusive, in both our professional and personal lives, but only if we let them. Here are some ways to help you regain control.
April 25, 2016
Why All Physicians -- Even Non-Owners -- Need to Do Marketing Physicians are sometimes reluctant to sing the praises of their skills and of their practice. But in this day of cheap, easy-to-use communication tools, there's no reason not to.
February 23, 2016
Can Denmark Teach Us Something About Healthcare? It's called 'hygge,' a state of overall well-being that, combined with an efficient healthcare system, makes the Danes some of the happiest people on the planet. Is it time to copy their formula?
February 18, 2016
EHRs: Lots of Documentation But Little Communication Electronic health records fail to capture the true, transformational power of language, the author argues. He thinks he may have found some answers, though, in the world of nature.
December 16, 2015
Does Happiness = Acceptance for Today's Physician? Is happiness a question of achieving your dreams or of accepting the fact that life may fall short of your expectations, but you can still be happy?
December 02, 2015
Why Doesn't Congress Have Our Back? For all of their talk about improving the quality of care in America, federal legislators may let the Medicare bonus for primary care providers expire at the end of the year.
October 28, 2015
Drinking Water: A Global Medical Crisis to Resolve Now In America and around the world, the supply of drinking water is dwindling, leading to illness and even greater problems. Doctors can help to solve this.
October 19, 2015
ICD-10 and HCC: Overlooked Codes That Alter Your Income With the transition to a new set of diagnosis codes well under way, it's never been more important for clinicians to accurately document their care to patients. Here's why.
October 01, 2015
No One to Blame but Themselves Internist Greg Hood hopes that the children of future generations can save what is good, noble, and effective in healthcare. If it erodes, who is to blame?
August 31, 2015
Insights From a Mid-career Assessment An internist takes a look at the goals and mission he gave himself when he started out in medicine, and talks about their validity today.
August 18, 2015
Don't Let 'Hacktivists' Steal Your Data The theft of electronic data has reached epidemic proportions. Nowhere is the danger more real than in healthcare, where patients' records have become the crème de la crème among modern hackers.
July 27, 2015
The Pleiotropic Art of Medicine The practice of medicine is complex enough without clinicians having to deal with incentives from organizations that put profits before patients. It's high time for primary care to be transformed.
July 06, 2015
The Power of Being Intense Most physicians are used to being high achievers, but some seem to have an extra gear. It can be both a blessing and a curse, especially in the ever-changing world of modern medicine.
May 06, 2015
Consult Notes: Too Many Words, Too Little Information? Consult notes sometimes include so much information that they never get read -- and often, an incorrect diagnosis stays in there forever. What to do?
March 11, 2015
Doctors' Never-Ending Battle: Emotion vs Reason The inner conflict between rationality and emotionality is a constant source of stress for physicians. Striking the right balance, however, can translate to healthier patients and happier physicians.
February 26, 2015
Should You 'Tuck in' Your High-Risk Patients? Phoning patients with chronic conditions on a regular basis (known as 'tuck-in calls') may ward off costly hospitalizations or ED visits and/or get patients the care they need sooner.
January 13, 2015
Physicians: How Early-Life Pain Affects Career Choice There are similarities between physicians and comedians, says this internist, and one similarity is that early-life pain affects both of their outlooks toward life.
January 07, 2015