Contents tagged with value
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Value-based telemedicine
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Value-based telemedicine
By Blake McKinney, MD
When a family member was a new mom, she called me concerned about her 7-day-old baby’s breathing. I almost sent them to the ER. Then … more
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Measuring up: With value-based payment reform on the horizon, quality improvement in the family doctor’s office is about more than checking boxes
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Measuring up
With value-based payment reform on the horizon, quality improvement in the family doctor’s office is about more than checking boxes
By Jonathan Nelson
You can’t … more
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A better way to value family physicians’ work
By Richard Young, M.D.
Ms. M was a 68-year-old Hispanic female who had not seen Dr. Smith (not his real name) in nearly a year. She had run out of her diabetes, high blood pressure, and cholesterol medications months before.
Ms. M had other concerns in addition to these three chronic diseases and the practical difficulties she faced filling her prescriptions. She asked Dr. Smith to help her with her foot pain and knee pain. She was told by another doctor at an ER that she had visited for a non-urgent problem a few months prior that her blood potassium level was low. She expected Dr. Smith to address her heartburn, recent weight gain, bad teeth, and an additional but distinctly different abdominal pain. She wanted a test for her kidney function, for which Dr. Smith had to spend a couple of minutes trying to figure out why she was concerned about her kidneys in the first place and the results of blood tests at other facilities such as her recent ER visit. Dr. Smith also spent several minutes explaining the need and importance of osteoporosis screening, which she ultimately declined.
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Value package
Save money with TAFP’s Exhibit Value Package
Want to reach the family doctors of Texas? Consider a year-long exhibit package that includes opportunities at all TAFP conferences and … more
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I didn’t know family docs could do that!
By Troy Fiesinger, M.D.
TAFP Vice PresidentI was playing golf recently in a charity tournament with a couple of orthopedic surgeons whose office is down the road from mine. As we made the usual small talk about where we went to medical school and residency, I mentioned that I delivered babies. The response I received was tinged with incredulousness: “You deliver babies? I didn’t know family doctors still did that.”
For me, obstetrics is part of what defines me as a family physician. Few things can compare to meeting a patient as a teenager, caring for her through high school and early adulthood, delivering her first child, and then helping her cope with the stresses of motherhood while her husband is deployed in Iraq. Her parents and little brother were also my patients. That is the essence of family medicine. Why wouldn’t I want to care for the entire family throughout the life cycle? When I am asked what I specialize in, I answer “everything.” I enjoy being a jack of all trades.
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The secret to better health care
By Robert Youens, M.D.
TAFP President, 2008-2009Hello, my colleagues. I have this bully pulpit for the next three quarters and intend to use it tastefully to express my opinion about the state of our affairs. So, here we go.
We are fortunate to be practicing the most fundamentally pure and satisfying medical specialty there is. Ours is a specialty of science and understanding, of the head and the heart, and of the definable episode and caring continuity.
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Rewards and challenges of family medicine
From the inaugural address of TAFP’s new president
By Robert Youens, M.D.
TAFP President, 2008-2009I’m a board-certified, residency-trained family physician starting my 30th year of practice in Weimar, Texas. My grandfather started practicing in my community 100 years ago and my father started 60 years ago. Sometimes I feel that I am simply a continuation of that one spirit. I love what I do. I love what our specialty does and I embrace its uniqueness. The longer I am at this business the more I realize how our particular brand of medicine is what’s best for all patients. Our holistic approach to the treatment of our patients continues to make us the best specialty on which to found a health care system. As the president of TAFP, I will continue our efforts to reinforce the truths that have been known to us and proven by repeated studies that family medicine delivers better outcomes at lower cost. We will continue to actively participate in any arena that will allow us to promote and support our proper place in the health care of our nation.
We need to be properly paid for what we do and TAFP will be there for any effort, including defining a medical home, that will get this done.
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TAFP members connect family medicine with decreased health costs
TAFP members connect family medicine with decreased health costs
Decreasing the price tag on health care through preventive medicine has frequented news outlets as one solution to controlling … more