Compensation Based on the Number of Patients in Your Panel—Just Say No
Compensation Based on the Number of Patients in Your Panel—Just Say No The latest trend in compensation is paying primes, at least in part, based on how large their patient panels are. Holy cow, what a bad idea. What a bad, exploitative, short-sighted idea. An organization who pays you in this way is just trying […]
How the New Medicare Payment Plan Affects Your Organization
CMS just announced a proposal to pay physicians a flat $93 for every office visit, no matter the length or complexity of the visit. The change would take place on January 1, 2019 No more E and M codes, no more “Levels of Service.” The only way to explain this change is that the CMS […]
How The New Coding Changes Will Impact Clinicians
Imagine a world where you won’t have to code a level of service for a visit. No 99203. No 99214s. No fumbling about looking for an additional data point on the ROS, or trying to justify “nature of the presenting complaint” just to get paid. No audits. No RBVs Just a single flat payment for […]
Top SIX Healthcare Trends Affecting YOU
For Patients What top trends affected your healthcare this past year? And what is coming up in 2018? Here, I’ve done some deep diving into the rabbit hole that is healthcare in America today. Let’s take a look at 2017’s Top SIX healthcare trends and my predictions for 2018. […]
How to Stop Calls From Your Health Insurance Company
For Patients One of the worse things about these Medicare Advantage plans is that they give the insurance company every incentive to call you about your health. It’s usually not even your insurance company making these calls, rather one of many different companies the insurance company pays. They communicate poorly […]
How The Eclipse Can Help You Land Your Dream Medical Practice
When interviewing with a prospective employer, ask a few of the employees you meet what the practice did during the eclipse. “We blocked the schedule, shut down, went outside and watched”—possible keeper. Bonus points the longer the party and the better the food. “Nothing special”—yellow light. “We had administrators call […]
Success Codes—Renal Edition
For Clinicians and Organizations Time for another edition of my wildly popular “Success Codes” series. If you haven’t already, you may want to review my world class, yet humbly simple (yes, really) explanation of RAF scoring—it’ll help you understand some of the shorthand terminology below. It’s the only one on the web written by a […]
One Simple Trick to Telling If Your Prospective Employer is a Keeper.
For Clinicians and Students If they include the well-being of their caregivers as part of their mission statement, they should be a keeper—and as rare as hen’s teeth. Physician, Nurse Practitioner or Physician’s Assistant, read more specific and actionable tactics for success in selecting and making the most of your new […]
In Which I Cost Myself Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars
For Clinicians and Organizations Analyze your data. Find your high-performing primes. Get in their office. Follow them around. Tear apart their workflows. Find another prime interested in replicating the parts of it that work so that they, too, can be a high-performer. Apply. Rinse. Repeat. A simple insight. Yet rarely done. I […]
What You Need to Know About Hospice and the End of Life
Everyone deserves to die without pain. There comes a time where nothing more can be done, or nothing more is wanted. Hospice is a program for just those times. Hospice is probably the most misunderstood program in medicine. Talking about hospice—indeed talking about death—causes discomfort, sadness, fear. But it NEEDS to be […]