Family Practice Management

February 1999 Table of Contents

Articles

28 You should be watchful for the biases that clinical policies may reflect and the methodologies used in their development.

36 'If you're consistently coding 99212 for established-patient visits, you're undervaluing your services.'

41 While on assignment in a remote Alaskan area, I learned the hard way what it takes to make life as a locum tenens successful.

28	28	CLINICAL POLICIES Where to Look for Good Clinical Policies Doctors increasingly need to know how to find, evaluate and implement clinical policies. Here's a concise guide to sources of the most reliable policies. Thomas T. Gilbert, MD, MPH, and Julie Scott Taylor, MD
28	33	MANAGED CARE Ground Rules for Dealing With Health Care Plans A new AAFP document maps out the high ground for family physicians' relationships with managed care organizations.

41	36	ASSEMBLY HIGHLIGHTS More Take-Home Messages From the AAFP Assembly From coding to capitation to computerized records, the Managed Care and Practice Enhancement Forum had a lot to teach. John Spicer and Brandi White
41	41	CAREER OPTIONS A Physician's Guide to Locum Tenens If you've ever been curious about this unique practice option, here's how one family physician made it work. William T. Cushing, MD, MBA
	45	EVALUATING RISK An Expensive Dinner: Surviving a Failed Business Venture There's no such thing as a free dinner when you're dealing with "wanna-be medical entrepreneurs." Max Burger, MD

Featured Departments

18 'If I ask patients to pay out-of-pocket for charges they're used to waiting for the insurer to pay, I won't have any patients.' Not so..

49 It's always amazed me how you have to drag doctors kicking and screaming into the electronic information age.

53 'The handouts either cut down on the amount of education we need to provide, or they help the patient to ask more intelligent questions.'

	18	GETTING PAID Implementing a Policy for Same-Day Payments The sooner you collect a payment for your services, the greater its value to your practice. Jean Kouris
	23	CODING AND DOCUMENTATION CPT Changes for 1999 Look especially closely at code changes for radiology, lab and pathology, and immunization services. Kent J. Moore
	23	Answers to Your Questions Kent J. Moore and John Spicer
	25	MONITOR Medicare spending slows; leaders call for more • Site offers one-stop shopping for clinical policies • Doctors fleeing HMOs? • How much are you paying your management staff? • HMOs sued over compensation methods • Studies find increasing numbers of uninsured • Y2K Update: HCFA "increasingly optimistic" about Y2K deadline
	49	PRACTICE DIARY Excerpts From a Family Physician's Journal Sanford J. Brown, MD
	50	ASK FPM Legal risks of giving a reference • Teaming up physicians and midlevel providers • Medicare HMOs and "teaching physician" rules
	53	IMPROVING PATIENT CARE Time Savers Use these tips to boost your efficiency in the office.
	53	A Broader View of Patient Education By teaching patients about clinical and nonclinical issues, you can replace their uncertainty with trust. Brandi White
	55	COMPUTERS Voice Recognition Software: A Tool for Encounter Notes Talking to the computer is no longer just an outlet for a doctor's frustration. Louis Spikol, MD
	56	Our Featured Web Site: Medical World Search David C. Kibbe, MD, MBA
	64	BALANCING ACT Conflict 101 While you can't eliminate conflict altogether, you can improve your reaction to it. Lyndia Flanagan
		Other Departments
	9	EDITOR'S PAGE
	12	LETTERS
	59	FPM QUIZ (EARN 3HOURS OF CME CREDIT)
	63	AUTHORS GUIDE

Copyright © 1999 by the American Academy of Family Physicians.
This content is owned by the AAFP. A person viewing it online may make one printout of the material and may use that printout only for his or her personal, non-commercial reference. This material may not otherwise be downloaded, copied, printed, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any medium, whether now known or later invented, except as authorized in writing by the AAFP.

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