Articles
Prescription Writing to Maximize Patient Safety
These tips can help you avoid two important causes of prescription error.
Reducing Risks for Patients Receiving Warfarin
These practices built safety into their systems for managing oral anticoagulation therapy.
Four Principles for Better Test-Result Tracking
Lost or misfiled test results can delay needed care. Here’s how to prevent this common error in office-based practice.
From the Editor
What’s Wrong With This Practice?
The practice shown on our cover has enough problems that you might need a key to identify them. Especially since none of the major problems show in the picture.
Opinion
Can We Avoid Errors in Family Practice?
Primum non nocere, “first do no harm,” is one of our profession’s guiding principles. First and foremost, we want to avoid mistakes. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine’s (IOM) report, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, focused the spotlight on medical mistakes in…
Getting Paid
An Easy Way to Analyze E/M Coding for Group Practices
This simple spreadsheet can help you identify problems in your coding performance.
Coding & Documentation
CODING & DOCUMENTATION
ER procedures and admission | Billing for nursing home work | Removing a nuchal lipoma
Monitor
MONITOR
AAFP establishes patient safety center | Two patient safety bills introduced in Congress | DOCUMENTATION GUIDELINES: A THING OF THE PAST? | Reducing medication errors in seconds | New drugs are nothing new | Free compensation calculator
Improving Patient Care
The Power of Two: Improving Patient Safety Through Better Physician-Patient Communication
Helping patients become more informed and involved in their care could be your best strategy for reducing medical errors.
Practice Diary
PRACTICE DIARY
If it walks like a duck … | Statements and stickers
Ask FPM
ASK FPM
When patients request their records | Reasonable bad debt | Including the correct diagnosis on a claim
Balancing Act
When Medical Errors Hit Home
Her father’s illness brought this FP face-to-face with the potential price of medical mistakes.