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Tag: primary care

“Thanks for Your Time”: Einstein’s Relativity in the Clinical Encounter

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By HANS DUVEFELT, MD

In business literature I have seen the phrase “getting paid for who you are instead of what you do”. This implies that some people bring value because of the depth of their knowledge and their appreciation of all the nuances in their field, the authority with which they render their opinion or because of their ability to influence others.

This is the antithesis of commoditization. Many industries have become less commoditized in this postindustrial era, but not medicine. Who in our culture would say that a car is a car is a car, or that a meal is a meal is a meal?

The differences between services with the same CPT code for the same ICD-10 code aren’t, hopefully, quite that vast. But they’re also not always the same or of the same value. There is a huge difference between “I don’t know what that spot is, but it looks harmless” and “It’s a dermatofibroma, a harmless clump of scar tissue that, even though it’s not cancerous, sometimes grows back if you remove it, so we leave them alone if they don’t get in your way”.

I always feel a twinge of dissatisfaction when, after a visit, a patient says “Thanks for your time”. It always makes me wonder, on some level, “did my patient not get anything out of this other than the passage of time, did we not accomplish anything”?

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Zeev Neuwirth Reframes Primary Care…Brilliantly

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By AL LEWIS

I would urge THCB-ers to read Reframing Healthcare by Dr. Zeev Neuwirth. While much of the territory he covers will be familiar to those of us with an interest in healthcare reform (meaning just about everyone reading this blog), Chapter 5 breaks new ground in the field of primary care.

Primary care is perhaps the sorest spot in healthcare, the sorest of industries. Primary care providers (PCPs) are underpaid, dissatisfied, and in short supply. (The supply issue could be solved in part if employers didn’t pay employees bonuses to get useless annual checkups or fine them if they don’t, of course.) 

They are also expected to stay up to date on a myriad of topics, but lack the time in which to do that and typically don’t get compensated for it. Plus, there are a million other “asks” that have nothing to do with seeing actual patients.

For instance, I’ve gone back and forth three times with my PCP as she tries to get Optum to cover 60 5-milligram zolpidems (Ambien) instead of 30 10-milligram pills. (I already cut the 5 mg. pills in half. Not fair or good medicine to ask patients to try to slice those tiny 10 mg pills into quarters. And not sure why Optum would incentivize patients to take more of this habit-forming medicine instead of less.)

This can’t be fun for her. No wonder PCPs burn out and leave the practice faster than other specialties. What some of my physician colleagues call the “joy of practice” is simply not there.

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THCB Spotlights: Brooke LeVasseur, CEO of AristaMD

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Today on THCB Spotlights, Matthew talks to Brooke LeVasseur, who is the CEO of AristaMD. AristaMD provides eConsults to empower providers to get patients faster access to care. The average wait time to see a specialist is one to two months, and the proportion of referrals to specialists that never happen can be incredibly high, at 40% in Medicare populations for instance. AristaMD aims to provide an efficient way for primary care providers to tap into the expertise of specialists to immediately start executing on a treatment plan without the patient having to wait or travel. Tune in to find out how AristaMD is actually rolling this out and get a demo of the platform.

Today’s Doctors: Colleagues or Free Agents?

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By HANS DUVEFELT, MD

My first job after residency was in a small mill town in central Maine. I joined two fifty something family doctors, one of whom was the son of the former town doctor. I felt like I was Dr. Kiley on “Marcus Welby, MD.” I didn’t have a motorcycle, but I did have a snazzy SAAB 900.

Will was a John Deere man, wore a flannel shirt and listened to A Prairie Home Companion. He was kind and methodical. Joe didn’t seem quite as rural, moved quicker and wore more formal clothes. I never could read his handwriting.

They each had their own patients, but covered seamlessly for each other. They were like a pair of spouses in the sense that they answered to each other as much as to their patients. They had to make everything work for the benefit of their shared practice, their shared livelihood. Their mutual loyalty was essential and obvious, although allowing for their differences in temperament and personalities.

Invited to stay on and enter into a partnership, I hesitated. How did I fit in? Could I follow in their footsteps and become an equal partner, covering for them and doing things similarly enough to fit in for the long haul?

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The ABCs of Beginning a Clinical Encounter

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By HANS DUVEFELT, MD

You’re running late and many things didn’t go right today. You knock on the door and enter the exam room with an apology. If you’re like me, you have a few papers and an iPad or a laptop in your hand. You sit down and open the patient’s chart in your device or perhaps on the big desktop, eyes not exactly locked on the patient.

Only after getting to where you need to be in the computer do you really look the patient in the eyes. Your body language has been one of hurry and distraction. Now you try to repair the damage of that, so you try to show you’re settling down now, at least for a few moments. You might sigh, move your arms in a gesture of relaxation and say something to get the history taking underway.

So far, you’re failing. I do that often, too.

Here’s what we all know we need to do, but often don’t; we should follow these ABCs:

A – Attention:

Clear your mind. It doesn’t matter what happened in the other room with the other patient, or on the phone with the insurance company or the smug specialist or ER doc who pointed out the diagnosis you missed. Open the door (I always knock first) and immediately look at the patient. Make eye contact and observe them. Pay attention to how they look, what they are signaling. The computer can wait; a few moments of focused attention will usually save you time in the end. After all, red or teary eyes, a leg cast, a big bruise or change in grooming can make the visit go in a direction you wouldn’t have expected from he listed chief complaint. How many times have we heard a patient comment about another doctor: He didn’t pay attention to me. Do we always do that ourselves if we’re rushed or preoccupied?

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Brief is Good

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By HANS DUVEFELT, MD

How long does it take to diagnose guttate psoriasis versus pityriasis rosea? Swimmers ear versus a ruptured eardrum? A kidney stone? A urinary tract infection? An ankle sprain?

So why is the typical “cycle time”, the time it takes for a patient to get through a clinic such as mine for these kinds of problems, close to an hour?

Answer: Mandated screening activities that could actually be done in different ways and not even necessarily in person or in real time!

Guess how many emergency room or urgent care center visits could be avoided and handled in the primary care office if we were able to provide only the services patients thought they needed? Well over 50% and probably more like 75%.

Primary Care clinics like mine are penalized if a patient with an ankle sprain comes in late in the year and has a high blood pressure because they are in pain and that becomes the final blood pressure recording for the year. (One more uncontrolled hypertensive patient.)

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The Folly of Self Referral

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By HANS DUVEFELT, MD

A lot of Americans think they should be able to make an appointment with a specialist on their own, and view the referral from a primary care provider as an unnecessary roadblock.

This “system” often doesn’t work, because of the way medical specialties are divided up.

If belly pain is due to gallbladder problems you need a general surgeon. If it’s due to pancreas cancer, you need an oncologic surgeon. If the cause is Crohn’s disease, any gastroenterologist will do, but with Sphincter of Oddi problems, you’ll need a gastroenterologist who does ERCPs, and not all of them do. Now, of course, if you’re a woman, that abdominal pain may actually be referred pain from an ovarian cancer, best treated by a GYN-oncology surgeon, which anywhere in Maine means a drive down to Portland.

The other day I saw an older man for a second opinion. He had been through one hand surgery for a small tumor many years ago in Boston, and another unrelated operation for a fracture in Bangor a few years ago. Then, after a non surgical injury, he developed stabbing pains in the same hand. Someone referred him to a neurologist for EMG testing, which was normal, and the man told me that was all the neurologist did, not a full consultation.

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Trauma-Informed Primary Care

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Samyukta Mullangi

By SAMYUKTA MULLANGI MD, MBA, DANIEL W. BERLAND MD, and SUSAN DORR GOOLD MD, MHSA, MA

Jenny, a woman in her twenties with morbid obesity (not her real name), had already been through multiple visits with specialists, primary care physicians (PCPs), and the emergency department (ED) for unexplained abdominal pain. A plethora of tests could not explain her suffering. Monthly visits with a consistent primary care physician also had little impact on her ED visits or her pain. Some clinicians had broached the diagnosis of functional abdominal pain related to her central adiposity, and recommended weight loss. This suggestion inevitably led her to become defensive and angry.

Though our standard screen for safety at home had been completed long ago, I wanted to probe further, knowing that many patients with obesity, chronic pain and other chronic conditions have suffered an adverse childhood – or adulthood – experience (ACE). Yet, I hesitated. Would a busy primary care setting offer enough latitude for me to ask about a history of trauma when it can occur in so many forms, in so many ways and at different times of life? Furthermore, suppose she did report a history of trauma or adverse experience. What then? Would I be able to help her?

Nonetheless, I began: “Jenny, many patients with symptoms like yours have been abused, either emotionally, physically, or sexually, or neglected in their past. Sometimes they have suffered loss of a loved one, or experienced or witnessed violence. Has anything like this ever happened to you?”

This yielded our first breakthrough. Yes, she had experienced neglect, with parents who were separated for much of her childhood, and then later divorced. She had seen her father physically abuse her mother. With little parental oversight, she had engaged in drug and alcohol use throughout her teenage years. But, she wanted to be sure we understood that this was all behind her. She had gotten an education, was in a committed relationship, and had a stable job as a teacher. That part of her life was thankfully now closed.

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Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 72 | Haven, Scott Gottlieb, & Crossover Health

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On Episode 72 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I give you a run down of the latest in health tech. At long last, the joint health care venture between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan has a name: Haven. In other news, Scott Gottlieb has decided to leave the FDA; we’ll just have to see what happens with the next FDA Commissioner. On the behavioral health front, AbleTo has acquired Joyable, a mental health coaching app. Finally, Crossover Health, which provides medical services to large employers like Facebook, acquired Sherpaa, a text messaging-based service—we’re seeing virtual services combining with a physical space more and more. And as mentioned, you can catch my talk from the 2017 HIC conference in Australia on how SMACK Health and Karl Marx will change health care here. —Matthew Holt

Advance Practice vs Primary Care

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By SAURABH JHA MD SAURABH JHA

In this episode of Radiology Firing Line Podcast, Danny Huges and I discuss a JAMA paper: A comparison of diagnostic imaging ordering patterns between advanced practice clinicians and primary care physicians following office-based evaluation and management visits.

Listen to our conversation on Radiology Firing Line here.

Saurabh Jha is a contributing editor to THCB and host of Radiology Firing Line Podcast of the Journal of American College of Radiology, sponsored by Healthcare Administrative Partner

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