Archives

Archives / 2018 / March
  • ABFM invites board-certified family physicians to enroll in PRIME Registry free for the first three years

    Tags: primeregistry.org, PRIME Registry, ABFM, MIPS, CPC+, ABFM Diplomates, Performance Improvement activity tool

    By ABFM staff

    PRIME Registry is a practice and population data tool developed by the ABFM that safely extracts patient data* from your electronic health records and turns it into actionable measures, presented in an easy-to-use, personalized dashboard, maintaining its full confidentiality. PRIME not only simplifies quality reporting for payment programs such as MIPS and CPC+, but also allows you to better evaluate aspects of your practice, patient groups, and individual patients, illuminating gaps or successes in patient care.

    Another bonus for ABFM Diplomates is the integrated Performance Improvement activity tool. This allows Diplomates to easily use EHR data to complete PI activities and earn points toward the ABFM continuous certification requirements.

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  • Transitioning from resident to new physician

    Tags: Alyssa Molina, transition, resident to physician

    By Alyssa Molina, MD

    When it comes to residents transitioning into practice, there are a few things I would stress. Know where you would like to be on the job continuum between autonomy and security. You could have a completely autonomous position. You own your own practice, you decide when you’re opened, when you are closed, and what you do. While you’ll have complete autonomy, you won’t have security. If you are sick and you don’t come to work, you don’t get paid. At the other end of the spectrum, you have the security of being employed by a practice. In that practice, they decide how many patients you see, how many vacation days you get, and so on. There’s very little autonomy, but you have job security. You always get a paycheck, and it doesn’t matter how many patients you see. Most jobs are somewhere in the middle so, it’s important that you figure out for yourself, and your family, where you are comfortable on the spectrum.

    Where I’m currently employed, I have a lot of autonomy. If I choose to take off, I just make sure I’m not on call and that someone’s covering the clinic. I’m paid based on my productivity so there isn’t a certain number of days I have off each year. If I’m willing to take a smaller paycheck, I could take off more days and still have a job when I get back. Where I am on the continuum provides me with a base. They do all the billing for me, so I don’t have to worry about that.

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  • Chewing on a big fat wad of gum

    Tags: presidents letter, february, Janet Hurley, wad of gum

    By Janet Hurley, MD

    Changes in health care have been fast and furious in the last several years. The advent of MACRA created the need to prepare for MIPS and APMs, and more robustly report on quality and cost. There is an ongoing desire for interoperability and EMR modifications requiring more “clicks” than we would like. Many physicians have added new types of team members to their practices, such as social workers, nurse navigators, or care coordinators to reach out to patients in new creative ways.

    Some of this has been good for patients, and some of it possibly not. Some days it feels like physicians are chewing a big fat wad of gum, and feeling choked.

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