The Happy Hospitalist is a board certified internist who works in the hospital and writes regularly on several blogs, including The Happy Hospitalist.
The way doctors receive their radiographic results recently went automated at Happy’s hospital. What happens if I order a scan and I have a critical radiology finding that needs to be reported to me quickly? Do I get a phone call and verbal notification? Nope. Apparently, none of my patients are important enough to get […]
The credentialing process just keeps on getting crazier. Physicians now pay hundreds of dollars a year in government regulatory licensure fees. Doctors pay thousands of dollars to take the test. The test is a board exam documenting the physician’s expertise in a field of medicine so they can hang a certificate on their wall […]
Small practices play a critical role in healthcare delivery, but they cannot continue to absorb ever-increasing administrative demands without consequences.
I often get asked the question, “What is a hospitalist?” when patients and families have no idea who I am. Sometimes I introduce myself as an internist who specializes in hospital based medicine. Which then forces some people to ask me about being an internist. As an internist, I have chosen a field that has […]
It’s now been seven years. Seven exciting years of continuous hospitalist enjoyment with the same hospitalist program. Hospitalist programs are a dime a dozen. Every hospital on this earth is trying to incorporate the benefits of a hospitalist service into their long term business plan. Why? Because we are the present and the future of […]
What are you going to do when there’s no money left to pay you? That’s what you had better be thinking about as the as our health care finance reform trap continues its destined pursuit of bankrupting America. The only possible outcome to all this mess is the biggest man made health care recession of […]
More unhealthy people are being herded into our health care system and more doctors are exiting. That’s the perfect formula for chaos. I’d like to welcome the nursing profession here to save the day. Nurses have taken up the call for providing that missing link of access as doctors disappear. The expansion of nursing care […]
By reducing administrative burden and redesigning workflows around human needs, it creates space for what matters most: connection between clinicians and patients.
When a patient leaves the hospital, the physician dictates a synopsis of the hospital stay. This process is lesson in systemic chaos. For hospitalist medicine, other than direct physician to physician discussion on the day the patient leaves, this synopsis is the most important tool available to relay the events of the hospital stay to […]
Well, it’s official. Again. The big Medicare slash continues. Today is April Fools Day. It’s also the day that grandma’s insurance payments to physicians got cut over 20%. Again. That’s in addition to the greater than 20% cut physicians have already experienced in the last decade of stealth inflationary cuts. Way back in December of […]
From the super morbid obesity files comes this unbelievable death wish. According to Fox News, Donna Simpson from Old Bridge, NJ has one incredible goal in life. Already topping the scales at 602 pounds, her desire is to be the best at what she does, eating. Her goal you ask? She wants to weigh 1,000 […]
How to turn analytics into actual policy outcomes.
“It’s the fourth year in a row that CRNAs were recruited at a higher pay than a family doctor,” said Kurt Mosley, staffing expert with Merritt Hawkins & Associates. This is why we have a shortage of outpatient primary care physicians in this country. There is no other reason. When you can make more income […]
Just like that. Bam. Thump. Right to the ground she went. Before you knew it there were ten people hovering. I was writing a note on a patient. I walked over to see what was going on. She was awake. She was talking. She had a pulse. She looked a bit embarrassed by the whole […]
The worst possible scenario has come to life. The 21% Medicare cut for physicians has been implemented. For the seniors of this country, their Congress has failed them. What they have done to physicians is give them no choice. Walk away from Medicare or continue to suffer the consequences of economic reality.