CMS is changing note requirements, among other changes. Bob Doherty has a wonderful summary: “Medicare’s historic proposal to change how it pays physicians.” As always, we really will have a difficult time sorting out the unintended consequences of these changes, but they certainly seem like a move in the proper direction. To me the most […]
CMS is changing note requirements, among other changes. Bob Doherty has a wonderful summary: “Medicare’s historic proposal to change how it pays physicians.” As always, we really will have a difficult time sorting out the unintended consequences of these changes, but they certainly seem like a move in the proper direction. To me the most […]
The word “historic” is often used by PR professionals to hype something that is, well, pretty run-of-the-mill. They figure that no one is going to read a news release that announces “[Name of organization] proposes small change that really won’t make much of a difference.” The problem is that when something is done that really […]
I’m a creature of habit. My first activity every day is to read the New York Times. Depending on my schedule, some days I read more articles than others. This week I was away at a conference and found myself with some early morning extra time before the first meeting session, so I delved into […]
It’s peculiar, I think, that we live in a time of physician shortage and yet some things remain abundantly clear: 1. Physicians can’t work together to fight, either for their own good or the good of their patients. 2. Like hostages, or abused spouses, they just keep going back for more of whatever bad policies […]
I was recently doing some home shopping in Target. It was peak time and fairly busy. After I was done, I walked towards the front of the store and approached the counter area to pay. But alas, there appeared to be hardly any manned registers. Lots of people were strolling up and down, trying to […]
I was recently doing some home shopping in Target. It was peak time and fairly busy. After I was done, I walked towards the front of the store and approached the counter area to pay. But alas, there appeared to be hardly any manned registers. Lots of people were strolling up and down, trying to […]
He was a young patient with AIDS and Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia (PJP). Maybe that should have scared me from the start, but it didn’t. In hindsight, I keep wondering when the fear really set in. But downstairs under the glaring lights and the swooshing bustle in the ER, I only remember that he looked slightly […]
All of our 200+ bones have names, which facilitates describing them when we cannot actually hold them or point directly at them. It might be easier to remember the names if they were familiar ones like Robert, Sally, and Kevin, but no such luck. Latin was the original language of science, so the bones received […]
Test your medicine knowledge with the MKSAP challenge, in partnership with the American College of Physicians. A 70-year-old man is evaluated in follow-up for heartburn of 7 years’ duration. He has frequent nocturnal reflux but has not had odynophagia or dysphagia, and his weight has been stable. He was recently started on once-daily omeprazole with good control […]
