Sep-Oct 2009

Features

ICD-9 Updates 2010: New and Noteworthy Codes

Cindy Hughes

Five Communication Strategies to Promote Self-Management of Chronic Illness

Harriet Boxer; Susan Snyder

Immediate Action Protocol: A Tool to Help Your Practice Assess Suicidal Patients

Barbara Yawn; Allen Dietrich; Peter Wollan; Susan Bertram; Marge Kurland; Deborah Graham; Jessica Huff; Wilson Pace

What You Can Do to Help Your Uninsured Patients

Robert A. Forester; Richard J. Heck, MD

Offering Financial Assistance to Newly Uninsured Patients

Cindy Hughes

Departments

From the Editor

Preparing for Health Care Unreform
Robert L. Edsall

Coding & Documentation

• Home Health Services and Private Payers • Three-Day Observation Stay • Documenting Surgical Assists • Prolonged Services

Practice Pearls

• Give Cash-Paying Patients Some Cash Back • Dress Up Your Ceiling Lights • Calculating Average Work RVUs for Family Physicians • Think Like an Athlete When Assessing Injuries

Letters

• Dr. Starfield Brings It Home

• The Feds and EHRs

• Cell Phone Communication With Patients: Love it or Hate it?

• Working With the "Right People" and the "Wrong People"

The Last Word

Are You Thinking Right?
Katia L. Mercado-Castro

About the CME Quiz

AAFP members and FPM subscribers can take the CME quiz online at http://www.aafp.org/fpmquiz.

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