How to Help a Grieving Friend
This space is reserved for high-value tips to help patients get better healthcare safely. Here is one of the highest-value tips I’ve ever offered. How to help someone deal with their pain. Not the most uplifting topic I know, but an essential one. And after four minutes you’ll discover how to […]
Sunday Links
The font of your expertise A little different Sunday Links today. Here’s a listing of the greatest hits from my blog for the past 18 months, each one guaranteed to help you do better. Read every one of them? That’s how you become a Medicare Advantage Master. Medicare Advantage Lessons Learned The last […]
What are Medicare Advantage PPOs?
What are Medicare Advantage PPOs? I talk a lot about Medicare Advantage HMOs and not a lot about PPOs, Preferred Provider Organizations. That’s a mistake on my part. With a Medicare Advantage HMO, you pick a clinician to be your gateway to care. They’re paid a fixed amount of money every month to fund your health […]
Beware of Student Loans. Debt is Slavery.
Share this post with a professional or pre-professional student you know. You may just keep them from killing themselves. 101 people in the country have student loan debts that top $1m. That’s not too bad, considering the hundreds of millions of people who have student loan debt at all. But it is instructive as hyperbole […]
How to Get Your Organization Started on a Medicare Advantage Program
How does an independent practice get started with Medicare Advantage? When I was first starting out, if our little practice in rural Missouri wanted a fee-for-service insurance contract we practically had to send up fireworks to get an insurer’s attention. It was all about market share back then. And compared to the larger […]
Sunday Update
So you can be the smartest one at the water cooler Managed Medicaid giant Centene becoming a major Medicare Advantage player. The more competition, the better. But I hope they understand that managed care Medicare is a whole different beast than managed care Medicaid. The margins may be fatter, but the beneficiaries are infinitely […]
Saturday Quiz
Designed to Enlighten and Amaze In general, how long does it take for a submitted risk code to begin to affect your monthly capitation rate? A. Immediately B. One-to-two months C. Three-to-six months D. Six-to-twelve months E. Twelve-to-eighteen months. x x x x x x x x x x x The shocking answer […]
Medicare Advantage Capitation Rates
What would happen if Medicare Advantage capitation rates were sliced 20% across the board? How would that affect the financial performance of your organization? Can’t happen, you say? The Office of the Inspector General estimates that 20% of the revenue Medicare Advantage pays out in capitation is fraudulent. The trustees recently identified it as an […]
What’s the best tip to stay safe during a telemedicine visit?
What’s the best tip to stay safe during a telemedicine visit? Prepare. Telemedicine visits done “on-the-fly” are a bad idea. They’re not a call to your mother or your best friend, they’re serious business. A doctor whom you do not know and who does not know you will be offering medical advice, including prescribing drugs. […]
Physician Mentoring
Physician Mentoring Dr. Bryce asks, “You talk a lot about jobs and young doctors coming out of residency. What about someone who’s been through a couple of cycles of employment contracts and is thinking of doing something else? What advice do you have for us?” Read the book Transitions by William Bridges. Its been around […]