Doctor Data

Will plan have more comprehensive coverage to allow people to choose modalities such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedia and homeopathy and other complementary and truly preventative therapies along side the choices of pharmaceuticals, PET scans and surgery?

This is a positive situation. About a generation from now perhaps we will have a less litigious society and more monies will be spent on services that everyone would like as opposed to in a legal system which feeds the lawyers and leaves both plaintiff and defendant as victims of the system.

Is this now part of the Review of Systems? With a large part of the population owning guns in some form, how reasonable is it to report it to authorities and in addition what services ar available to assess if the gun is of imminet danger?

If one considers the projections of shortages in primary care, too much debt is a good thing in that it forces the decision to not subspecialize.

Entrepreneurs are now hiring the MBAs who are "a dime a dozen"

Oncologists and researchers have made such great inroads. Now the goal is migration to normal life expectancy post cancer therapy/

Big ones are:

Ask about pay for nonclinical duties

Bring up retirement and other personal matters.

Always consider your exit strategy before you go to the negotiations. What is your best alternative to not reaching agreement? Perhaps is time for you to jump out on your own or join another independent group that offers a lifestyle that suits your desires.

In other words, pay is only one aspect. Will you really be happy when your pay is higher and your schedule heavier?

Check out this interview with Sam Leibowitz interviewing me. Very pleased that I will be hositng my show here beginning January 22 at 8PM ET -LIVE

Think carefully before getting the flu vaccine. Perhaps you are one of those healthy people who is better off without it and all its serious and (some) permanent side effects.

Inofrmation overload is the problem of the day. Withh CNN, Fox and Dr. Oz reporting among the many as to what is the the 'best' approach, most people are so overwhelmed that they do nothing. In addition, too little attention is given to the complementary and alternative approaches which can in many cases yield better results with less or no side effects.

So health literacy is complicated today even for ahighly educated healthcare providers.

As defined in Health People 2010, Health literacy is: 
“The degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions.”

I've seen this play out in practice. Even African-American patients who are highly educated and well insured receive biased treatment. The result is poorer outcomes in health even for the most diligent patient being cared for by a biased doctor.

Previous studies have found that lower patient satisfaction scores are correlated with poorer outcomes on a wide range of metrics, such as medication adherence and hospital readmissions. There is still no proven way to combat the unconscious biases that can undermine some doctors’ relationships with black patients, said Irene V. Blair, PhD, lead author of the Denver study.

My tips would be to speak in short sound bites and pretend you are at a dinner party having a conversation. Let here be a natural back and forth between the host and you.

The call to action should be soft such as giving your web address. Nothing sounds worst than not giving information on the topic and than telling the audience if they buy your book or go to your program they will get the info. That is the most counter productive way to do an interview. Realize that you want the host to promote you rather than doing self promotion and when you answer the questions the host will more likely wish their audience to find you because you have established yourself as the authority on the topic.

Multidisciplinary team is hospitals are not truly multidisiplinary in that genrally only Western medical approaches are considered. Cancer care would be impacted greatly when complementary medical approaches are added along with lifestyle coaching for the cancer patient.

Clinicians should retain the right to decide whether a particular recommendation is right for them. There are many studies that show 1-the dangers of the flu shot 2-the inefficiency of the flu shot.

So clinicians who choose to make a broadly informed decision of NOT taking the flu shot should not be deemed as a health hazard as generally tose who take the time to broadly investigate options for maintaining health are generally the healthy people in the populations who do not carry and spread disease.

Yelp is a great tool and I use it over Facebook to search out local businesses as the base of Yelp users is a discriminating bunch who appear to be dedicated to giving fair reviews.

On the other hand, Facebook tend to be poorly reliable in figuring out which businesses to use in that the average user is more random and much less discriminating in posting about businesses. 

This is a point in which Yelp would do itself some good to reassess its strategies for gaining loyal followers and fans.

Everyone has a brand. Even if you have no brand, no image.....that is your brand.

The pay changes should happen after physicians have training on how to improve on the measures.  At this juncture, physicians will be rewarded or punished with no clear way to improve.

In addition, each patient's case and life are different and people do whatever they choose. How much control do doctors really have over the outcome once someone lands in the hospital?

Innovation is what the entire healthcare system requires at this juncture. Here is why Will.i.am is unique qualified and since what we have going on isn't working it is time to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start fresh

1-He has hardware expereince

2-He gets the space

3-He has a petient/consumer perspective

4-He understands disruption and innovation