Practice Improvement

This article will present an overview of the technology involved in scanning documents, reviewing documents, and signing documents, and provide some tips on how to expedite your document workflow.

Readers of Contemporary Pediatrics will be pleased to know that according to Merritt-Hawkins, one of the nation’s leading physician search firms, the average starting salary offered to recruit pediatricians rose from $195,000 in 2015 to $224,000 in 2016, a 15% increase. You may be curious how your current compensation as well as your compensation model compares with that of your colleagues. More importantly, there may be ways for you to earn more-or avoid a painful pay cut if your patient visits are dwindling.

This article describes how a mobile application, a “web widget,” and an office triage support tool can expedite and improve your existing office triage capabilities.

One physician says the time to protest MOC mandates is now.

With the introduction of point-of-care (POC) molecular assays, pediatricians can diagnosis influenza A and B during the office visit with sensitivity and specificity comparable to reference assays.

My clinic is restructuring its physician compensation model, which has led to much consternation among my colleagues.

It’s been over a year since the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) announced its intentions to overhaul the maintenance of certification (MOC) process. In this reportorial article, Dr. Andrew Schuman brings you up-to-date with current MOC requirements and the changes likely to occur over the next year.

Many years ago, when my now-grown children were babies, we had the bare necessities for raising our young ones. Cloth diapers and diaper pins, plastic bottles and NUK nipples, and the all-important windup baby swing. Now decades later, parents have an assortment of high-tech gadgets to help raise their newborns.

I began the January 2016 Peds v2.0 article “Expediting medical documentation” by stating that my “theme” for this year’s articles is the “retaking” of pediatric practice for ourselves and our patients. I continue this discussion by borrowing a slogan from one of our presidential candidates, in the hopes that pediatricians can be motivated to implement needed reforms that will make practices more efficient, improve the care we provide to patients, and enhance the lives of pediatric providers.

When I opened my first practice in 1986, I was intrigued by an advertisement in Contemporary Pediatrics that caught my attention, and days later I was the proud owner of a FirstTemp tympanic thermometer.

To continue our ongoing theme of “taking back” the practice of pediatrics for ourselves and our patients, I’d like to discuss utilizing behavior portals to facilitate the diagnosis of patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), developmental delay, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), as well as depression and anxiety.

Let’s begin our recovery of medical practice by discussing alternative ways of documenting office visits.

In this article, I describe my experience visiting vendors in the NCE’s exhibit hall and detail some of the best tech presented at this year’s workshops.

Physicians and parents are using a variety of health-related gadgets and gizmos that communicate with our smartphones and tablets. These range from fitness devices that monitor daily exercise, to glucometers used by diabetics to monitor sugar levels, to sphygmomanometers used to measure blood pressure.

Barring a last minute reprieve, International Classification of Diseases version 10 (ICD-10) diagnostic coding went into effect the first of this month. If you read my March 2015, Peds v2.0 article on ICD-10 adoption-and heeded the advice contained therein-you have successfully implemented ICD-10, and everything is going smoothly now.

Contemporary Pediatrics brings you 10 tips to make the switch to the ICD-10 coding system.

When I started my pediatric practice in 1986, we tested patients for strep throat by performing a throat culture, which was placed in a small office incubator for 48 hours. Typically, we put patients on an antibiotic pending culture results and would stop antibiotics if the culture proved negative. In my first year of practice, an interesting new technology arrived-rapid antigen detection tests (RADTs). These tests were reasonably accurate and enabled us to make a diagnosis at the time of the visit.

Despite the growth of retail-based clinics, the availability of direct-to-consumer video visits, and the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, you are having a busy day in the office.

In this follow-up to his article "Telehealth: A primer for pediatricians" that appeared in the June 2015 issue of Contemporary Pediatrics, Dr. Andrew Schuman describes the logistics of implementing your own office telehealth program.

Andrew J Schuman, MD, FAAP, presents his take on the US Supreme Court decision to uphold the healthcare subsidies provision of the Affordable Care Act and how the monumental decision will affect the future of pediatrics.

Whether you realize it or not, you have been practicing telehealth for years. By communicating with patients by telephone, you are managing their care at a distance.

Although I’ve been writing articles for Contemporary Pediatrics since 1988, I have never received as much supportive e-mail as I have in response to my 2 maintenance of certification (MOC) articles published in the January 2015 issue.

Despite our best efforts, pediatricians have little success in encouraging our patients to eat a healthy diet and get the recommended amount of daily physical exercise.

Pediatricians must learn the nuances of new ICD-10 coding and prepare for the transition now! Dr Schuman presents the reasons behind ICD-10 implementation as well as key elements of ICD-10 adoption to assure a smooth transition for your practice.