June 13, 2014
by Pamela Wible
Johnny’s disabled. He can’t get to my office anymore. So I drive 100 miles up the Oregon coast to check in on him. I get lost, but finally discover his little white house on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
Dr. Wible’s a huge inspiration for us in Wichita.
Please, take a moment to experience her day at the “office”, or in this case, a man’s house in Oregon adjacent to a 100-foot cliff.
June 10, 2014
Dr. Frank Morgan has been practicing medicine for 13 years in Greeley. Like many of his fellow primary care purists, he wanted to spend more time with his patients and less time dealing with insurance paperwork.
That’s why he founded his new direct primary care clinic, Balance Health, 1709 61st Ave. Here, like us, he treats his patients without accepting insurance. Instead, patients pay a $99 monthly subscription for access to his personal primary care services, as well as access to the clinic’s gym and nutritional advice services.
June 6, 2014
Thanks to Brian McTavish for covering Atlas MD at 1 Million Cups.
“Healthcare’s broken, and we’re here to fix it,” Umbehr said. Instead of taking insurance, Atlas MD charges patients a monthly membership fee—$10 for children and $50 to $100 for adults based on their age. Patients in return get unlimited visits, no co-pays, a variety of free procedures and wholesale pricing on prescriptions and lab work with discounts of up to 95 percent. In addition, Atlas MD works with employers to provide less expensive health care coverage for their employees.
June 6, 2014
Atlas.md EMR rolled out some new updates. Besides the improved features listed below, we also strengthened security measures to ensure better compliance with HIPAA standards.
Manage Your Shared Appointment Resources
Now your clinic can manage resources that they share in the practice facilities, such as a procedure room or a piece of equipment.
Improved Search Feature
We built a new search engine to help you complete advanced searches, fast.
Redesigned Online Bill Pay
Now Atlas.md EMR’s Pay Online page works aesthetically with your own clinic’s logo. It also gives your patients quick access to all of their past invoices.
Universal Autocomplete Support
The autocomplete feature works wherever you enter text in Atlas.md EMR.
New “Do-Not-Refill-Before” Notices On Prescriptions
Now when you fax Rx and refills to pharmacies, your clinic will be more compliant with regulations.
To follow up on suggestions from pharmacists we’ve been talking to, now if a prescription has a DEA controlled drug and that drug can be refilled, we display a “Do not refill before MM-DD-YYYY” notice for the pharmacists.
New Medication Savings Included In Patient Invoices
Now your patients can see the value they’re saving in ordering medications from your pratice’s inventory. We use the GoodRx database, which gives accurate prices in pharmacies all over the country (see example below of what your patients will see).
More Batch Actions When Billing
Now you can use batch actions when you are billing companies, e.g. print or email a batch of invoices, or print a batch of envelope labels instead of going one by one
Thanks for sharing your feedback with us. Keep it coming so we can make Direct Care’s EMR that much better.
June 5, 2014
Women are often considered drivers for healthcare in their families.
Unfortunately, Kaiser Family Foundation performed a study and found that many women face cost and logistical barriers to obtaining healthcare for themselves.
June 4, 2014
In Sonoma County, a man is battling more than a dozen tumors in his body.
Oh, and now he is fighting a different battle, says CBS News, with his insurance carrier, Anthem Blue Cross.
June 4, 2014
Our nation loves prescriptions.
According to researchers at the Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center, “Nearly 70% of Americans take one prescription drug and more than half take two.”
It gets better. Approximately 20% of Americans use at least five prescription medications. Imagine the cost savings if Direct Care doctors directly prescribed a majority of these at wholesale prices.
Prescription drug use has been increasing steadily in the U.S. for the last ten years.
So what drugs are being prescribed, and why?
June 2, 2014
KLAS, a national firm that measures EHR vendor performance, conducts an annual poll of healthcare providers, not only about the quality of their EHRs but also about make-or-break issues such as training, implementation, and support.
The gripes cover three main areas: One, EHRs have made the patient encounter far more annoying and complex than it ever was before.
Two, many physicians feel that EHRs take doctors who were trained to be independent thinkers and constrain their ability to make independent decisions, causing them to feel like data entry clerks, with a computer telling them how to practice medicine.
Last but not least, a large number of physicians feel that EHRs erode the doctor-patient relationship by creating a barrier between the two.
June 1, 2014
Recently, someone asked me on Twitter, “Has the change in classification of obesity as a disease affected how you treat patients presenting w/ the disease?”
The classification change in question is regarding the American Medical Association’s declaration that obesity is a disease rather than a comorbidity factor.
May 26, 2014
If a doctor, dentist or nurse reaches out to shake your hand, should you: (a) reciprocate and extend your hand, (b) shake at least once or twice but don’t pump or hold hands for more than five seconds, (c) make eye contact and smile while shaking or (d) recoil in horror, shove your hands deep into any available pocket and report the perpetrator to the nearest infection control specialist?
If you answered ‘d,’ then high five me. You understand the sorry state of hand hygiene in American health care and the toll it takes in spreading disease.