RedScrubs
The Resource for Medical Professionals

“Job cuts, layoffs, hiring freezes-it’s enough to frighten anyone, let alone someone looking for employment. Have you felt the strains that come with this recession we’re in and does it scare you as much as it does me?
Well, there is good news. Employers are still hiring and certain industries will survive-even thrive-during these hard times. At the top of the list is healthcare (thank goodness!).”

Read on to discover what this author thinks about healthcare and the recession (did I say “depression”?).

When you think about how many bits of personal information hospitals and other healthcare providers gather on every patient or client who comes through their doors, it’s amazing most are able to keep those bits private. A thoughtless moment is all it can take to cross that HIPAA line into uncharted and unintended territory.
So what do you do when you’re on the other side of that line?
This blog discusses an incidence where HIPPA lines are crossed and what one employee did to rectify it.

It used to be that only teachers and critics gave grades and reviews. Now Netflix asks you to rate every movie you watch and even Kmart receipts ask for your opinion. Two news items out this week show how far the trend has moved into health care.

This blog touches on how doctors may be asked to be rated by research and other constituents, some of these recommendations are inherent in the stimulus bill just passed by President Obama.

Recently, one of my Urology friends confided in me about his personal angst over a proposition he had received to invest in a radiation treatment center. The root of the angst was not financial; he was confident that at the very least he would not lose his initial investment. Rather, his internal conflict stemmed from a 4th century oath that all physician’s swear to - the Hippocratic Oath.

In some urology oncological cases, radiation therapy is considered by some the standard of care (prostate particularly). However, it is not always the best option, as there are other modalities to care for tumors, such as chemotherapy, surgery, hormone therapy, radioactive seed implants and watchful waiting. As part of his routine practice, he utilizes radiation therapy for particular tumors; and currently aside from his initial diagnosis and management of the tumor, he does not financially benefit from any referrals he makes when he sends his patients for radiation.

His concern is simple and honest: Would he lean ever so slightly towards utilizing radiation therapy greater if his pocketbook were to gain from every new referral?

Read this blog to get one pediatrician’s view on self-referrals and subsequent kick-backs.

That was how my week ended. My patients were doing well, fluffed and buffed, but elsewhere on the unit, there was a cloud.

No, not the “happy cloud” the instructors told people to go to in the class some of our cohorts took, but a pall of the doom you know is coming.

One patient came in and within a couple of hours got his first order of vitamin K and some more elaborate diagnostic tests. Someone was drinking a little more than they let on…

Apologizing after medical errors is the moral and ethical thing to do, but this attorney says otherwise.

Saying sorry can deny malpractice coverage, says attorney Steven Kern, and from a legal perspective, “saying I’m sorry is an admission. An admission is an exception to the hearsay rule, so anyone who hears it can be called to testify against you, should legal action ensue.”

Read this blog to see what attorney Steven Kern has to say about apologies and your malpractice policy. Not good. Seems like you are caught between a rock and a hard place. Can’t admit you were wrong or your insurance won’t back you up, but isn’t that the moral and ethical thing to do when you make a medical mistake?

A just-released and comprehensive survey from The Physicians’ Foundation of more than 12,000 primary care physicians in the United States found some troubling—but not entirely surprising—results. America’s primary care physicians are very, very unhappy.

Anyone in the physician recruiting business would be advised to take a look at the survey, which was compiled this summer, because it provides a good roadmap for recruiting and retaining.

It’s about time someone wrote this blog. If we do not pay attention to what is bothering our doctors now, we may not have doctors to be bothered later. More will leave their practices, cut down on their caseload, stop seeing Medicaid/Medicare patients or will just plain find another field.

Paul Levy (CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and health care transparency champion and CEO blogger): “Shouldn’t there be some correlation between what you get paid for doing something and the quality of what you do?”