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JUNE 1998

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FEATURES

    The New AMA President Answers Your Questions

    Joseph Sgammato

    Doctors and patients must make hard choices or face “the dark ages of medicine,” warns family physician Nancy Dickey, MD.

    EDITOR'S PAGE

      Where Do We Go From Here?

      Robert L. Edsall

      Think back even a few years: Would you have said that the AMA might elect a female president the same year it snowed in hell? Surely Nancy Dickey's election is a sign of significant change in the weather. If it's not exactly snowing in hell, at least the effects of global...

      EDITORIAL

        The E/M Documentation Guidelines: Back to the Drawing Board

        Neil H. Brooks

        Nothing since the health care reform debate has created such ire or angst in the physician community as the proposed Documentation Guidelines for Evaluation and Management (E/M) Services. These guidelines were developed by HCFA and the AMA in concert with representatives of...

        LETTERS

        ASK FPM

          ASK FPM

          Evelyn Eskin, J. Landy Damsey

          Patient satisfaction surveys | Support staff ratios

          REIMBURSEMENT STRATEGIES

            Changes Proposed for the E/M Documentation Guidelines

            Leigh Ann Henry

            It's official. Implementation of the revised E/M documentation guidelines has been delayed to allow time for further changes. The announcement was made at a special fly-in meeting convened by the AMA on April 27. In a letter to AMA President Percy Wootton, MD, that was made...

              Use Random Audits to Find Payment Problems

              Judy Capko

              As you contract with more managed care plans and begin to see your adjustments climb, you need processes to help ensure that your practice gets paid for the work you do. One step your practice can take is to conduct periodic random audits of your reimbursement systems and...

              MONITOR

                MONITOR

                Primary care shortage questioned | Medicare slows payment of claims | Hospitalist group affiliates with ACP | Proposals simplify electronic claims | Kaiser-union pact: Nurses to evaluate quality of care

                OFFICE SUITE

                  Promoting Your Staff Makes Good Financial Sense

                  Robert B. Connelly

                  Of the choices you make for your practice, hiring decisions are among the biggest. As you know, a great staff can help you succeed, and a poor one can shut you down. And with patient satisfaction increasingly becoming the primary yardstick health plans use to measure...

                  FP STATS

                    Sticking Up for Primary Care

                    Family medicine faculty have a high level of enthusiasm for primary care that their counterparts in general internal medicine apparently do not share. In a recent survey comparing faculty members' attitudes toward primary care, family medicine faculty were more likely to...



                    Disclosure

                    All editors and editorial advisory board members in a position to control content for this activity, FPM journal, are required to disclose any relevant financial relationships. View disclosures.



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