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Be Prepared

Published June 26, 2014 Progress Notes 4 Comments

When I knock on the exam room door, after an ever-so brief pause to clear my mind from the constant mental clutter of my busy office, I want to focus only on my patient, and I want to be prepared.

That can be a struggle in today’s healthcare machine.

When a patient takes the initiative and asks for an appointment, the staff member on the phone can make the visit smooth instead of chaotic by making sure if there is something we have to get in preparation for that visit – an out-of-town emergency room report from the patient’s recent cross country trip, for example. Once the visit has started, the chances of getting records from an out-of-state hospital within 15 minutes are less than zero.

When I have asked the patient to come back, it is my team’s responsibility to be prepared. That means having a purpose for the visit stated in the schedule to give each of us a rough idea of what we need to do, and at least one of us will need to read the previous few office notes’ “Plan” to check the details.

We use words in my schedule that help define the visit. “FU (Follow-up) diabetes” means the quarterly visit with a glycohemoglobin drawn in advance with other lab tests or done with a fingerstick in the visit. “FU blood sugars” means we have already done the three-month visit and are bringing the patient back in to check the blood sugar log after some sort of treatment change.

“FU HBP” means a periodic, bigger, blood pressure visit that may involve other cardiovascular issues. “FU BP” is a quicker in-between visit to recheck a blood pressure that was high or to monitor a medication change.

Our EMR only offered scheduling options like “3 mo FU” and “1 mo FU”; that doesn’t help us prepare for the visit, so we worked around the vendor’s workflow to fit our practice.

The biggest challenge is to find the time for someone on our team to read the plan; it may mention tests we will do in the followup visit, an insurance or handicap form we promised to do next time, or it may mention that by the time I see a patient the next time, their long-awaited neurology consult should have taken place. If the report isn’t in, we still have a chance to get it in time for the visit if we call for it the day before or first thing in the morning.

We have had informal sessions before the first patient of the day for as long as I can remember. I have likened it to what a sports team or an airplane crew does before their job starts. Lately, in healthcare, the word “huddle” has become a staple in office workflow discussions. But not everyone in the business has embraced the idea of actually reading the last few office notes in each patient’s chart in preparation of each visit. In fact, some people seem to feel that only doctors should read the chart, even with all the talk about healthcare teams today!

Another big issue in reading the electronic chart is to review those items that are stored away from the clinical notes and test results; phone calls, at least in our system, are documented in a separate corner of the EMR, so that if I gave a patient a new blood pressure medication last month (lisinopril) and the patient called back saying their tongue swelled up, and I stopped the medication and maybe even prescribed a new one, that information is not part of the office visit sequence where I spend most of my time and attention. In a fifteen minute visit, many valuable minutes may be lost retracing such steps and events if the doctor walks into the exam room unprepared. Chart “prep” can make every visit smoother.

Today’s EMR notes can be challenging to read. For example, where in the old days I would dictate “Continue current medications and add amlodipine, 5 mg daily”, an EMR note today may automatically and with seemingly equal emphasis list seven refills and the new medication, so what is new drowns among the old. Unless I free-text in “add amlodipine to current regimen” or something similar, I can stare at the “plan” for a long time before discovering what was really new in the last visit.

Most patients probably think doctors remember things even without the record. I actually remember a lot more than I admit; I just don’t want to rely on my memory when a patient’s life and welfare is at stake and I have a million dollar system that is supposed to do the remembering for all eternity for me.

And, speaking of eternity, I have had a personal motto for many years, even before my temples started turning gray:

I try to add enough of my personal thinking, typed with two fingers after all the click-boxes have been checked off, so that if I should happen to meet my maker or perchance that big bull moose on Route One some day, my medical record and my team will make it easier for the next doctor in my position to take care of my patients.

The Ghosts in the Exam Room – Part 2

Published June 15, 2014 Progress Notes , The Ghosts in the Exam Room 5 Comments

Even Hippocrates acknowledged that medicine is not practiced in a vacuum. He didn’t use the word vacuum, of course, as it first came into use in medieval times. But he did speak of the individuals that influence doctor-patient relationships. He called them “the Externals”. I have referred to them as “the ghosts in the exam room”.

In my previous post I wrote about how Medicare is now scripting entire visit types – don’t follow the script for the “Annual Wellness Visit” and risk having to return your payment from Uncle Sam. Medicare is certainly a ghost in every exam room in today’s medicine.

There are other ghosts that whisper threats or temptations in both our patients’ and our own ears as we talk to each other. All insurance companies try to do what Medicare is doing but most of them don’t have the same clout. From drug companies to malpractice courts there are countless external forces that make their presence known in the physician-patient encounter. We are all aware of this and do our best to still provide a private, impartial space for our patients to share their concerns with us.

But not all ghosts in the exam rooms are authority figures that try to promote their own agendas in our patient encounters. We all bring our own private ghosts in the form of, for us physicians, patients we have learned from or whom we have failed – making us more cognizant of our personal and professional limitations. Most of us also carry the spirits of our mentors with us as we close each exam room door and open our senses and our hearts to each of our working day’s fellow human beings in some sort of need.

I often think of those patients who I knew had something dreadfully wrong with them, even if I didn’t at first know exactly what. I think about the High School senior who came in with a rash on her legs a few days before graduation and turned out to have acute leukemia. I think about the woman who wouldn’t let anyone else biopsy the small lymph nodes above her collarbones, which proved to be metastatic lung cancer. I think about the rugged motorcycle-riding deer hunter who blamed his widespread muscle pains on falling out of a tree stand a week or two earlier; he also had lung cancer. I also carry with me the vivid recollections of patients who made their own diagnosis once I let them speak uninterrupted.

In many difficult visits I also call on my mentors. Sometimes when I seem to be treading water, I think of Professor Boström, who sat in the corner of the exam room crushing tongue depressors during my final exam patient interview at the end of my internal medicine course. When I find myself getting flustered or feeling hurried, I think of Bob Gordon, one of the specialists at Cityside, who never seems to be in a hurry and never seems overwhelmed, even though he sees more dramatic cases than I do. And when I feel pulled between the conflicting agendas in today’s health care – when the ghosts in the exam room won’t stop chattering – I think to myself: “What would Osler do?”

Thinking and reading about the great masters throughout the history of medicine is as important as keeping up with the leading medical journals.

Practicing medicine without understanding, or at least respecting, the history of our profession and the changing nature of scientific knowledge is like sailing on the ocean without charts, compass, or GPS for that matter. You will begin to just drift with the prevailing wind.

Remembering that ours is an ancient calling that has existed in many cultures and under many rulers is necessary when so many forces are vying to redefine our profession.

We need to make sure the scary ghosts don’t outnumber the friendly ones. Because it is very obvious these days in our line of work: We are hardly ever alone with our patients.

The Ghosts in the Exam Room – Part 1

Published June 8, 2014 Progress Notes , The Ghosts in the Exam Room 1 Comment

The Medicare Annual Wellness Visit

One of the ghosts in every exam room is the institution that pays many private doctors over ten million dollars, the authority that determines that you can order a BNP (brain natriuretic peptide) to look for heart failure in patients with shortness of breath but not when they have leg edema – you know who I’m talking about – Medicare.

Medicare is not only deciding what services to pay for; they are also scripting entire doctor-patient visits.

As Medicare goes, so goes the nation’s healthcare. Except when it comes to annual checkups. For decades, just about all insurers except Medicare covered annual exams, and even paid pretty well for them. Now that the US Public Health Service Task Force on Prevention has stopped recommending annual exams, Medicare – read Obamacare – has started demanding them. However, they are not paying for the kind of exams patients have come to expect, but a watered-down, scripted event in the spirit of the “Welcome to Medicare” exam that at least yours truly refused to provide from Day One.

I have been brushing off the Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) until now, but it has become a quality indicator that our clinic has to report statistics on, so I need to change my ways.

For the past few days, I have been studying the scripts for the AWV. I have printed up the forms I will need in order to follow the script, since our EMR only has a template for the “Welcome to Medicare” visit, but not for the Annual Wellness Visit.

I have scratched my head about the covered baseline EKG when the USPHS recommends against it, the PSA screening when the evidence doesn’t support it, and several other items on the checklist.

I have duly noted that some clinics, after being audited, have had to call patients back in at no charge to complete missing items on the checklists. I have also noted, although I’m not sure I can comply with, the requirement that any actual physical exam performed during one of these visits requires the patient to sign an ABN (Advance Beneficiary Notice) that they might get a bill that isn’t covered by Medicare. I think I’ll just listen to some hearts and lungs without telling Uncle Sam about it.

Actually, I am a bit surprised that the roll-out of this scripted non-physical didn’t cause more of a stir when it happened. I was only vaguely aware of it. It is quite remarkable that a payer is now micromanaging what happens in the exam room to such an extreme degree.

I am figuratively holding my breath to see what my patients will think of this regimented encounter; they are used to me letting them speak, and me only gently steering the conversation in the exam room. I expect many will feel uncomfortable about the obvious presence of the ghost of the Government in what used to be our private space.

The Red Blues

Published June 4, 2014 Progress Notes 3 Comments

(A tedious topic)

“Then it’s me and my machine
For the rest of the morning,
For the rest of the afternoon
And the rest of my life.”

“Millworker”, James Taylor

It’s Friday afternoon, 4:30. I am sitting in front of my computer. My last patient is gone, my prescriptions are done, my messages answered, my office charges submitted and my office notes completed. Now it’s time to tackle the incoming laboratory results.

Opening up the list of completed comprehensive chemistry profiles, my heart sinks. As usual, out of 20 or so CMPs, every single listed patient name is red, which means they all have abnormal results.

My EMR displays results in three colors. Unreviewed normal results are blue, abnormal ones red and anything already signed off is black.

But abnormal is only statistical; there is no distinction between clinically insignificant results and clinically critical ones.

A high creatinine means kidney failure, but a low one is good news. A high CPK means muscle damage, but an extremely low one means nothing. My million dollar system doesn’t make any distinction. Because laboratory normals are defined as the statistical mean value plus-minus two standard deviations, the average patient has one abnormal result in each 20-item chemistry profile or complete blood count. That means a red alert is the rule, rather than the exception on every provider’s computer desktop.

As I and every other doctor click through all the meaningless red alerts in our “orders to sign off”, our senses are sometimes dulled by all the false alarms and we run the risk of missing clinically significant abnormal results.

A peculiarity with my EMR is that the color coding of test results only works in a window that displays three values at a time (only one if I log in remotely from home), so I am forced to scroll my way through each profile to find the abnormal values.

There is a full-screen result window, but it is several clicks away from and back to the Sign-off button, and comes only in black on white. It takes even longer to use.

As I glance at the numbers and the patient’s name, my right index finger is ready to move the trackball and my right thumb clicks the scroll down and Sign-off buttons again, again, again. But, as I click away, I suddenly register that a patient’s calcium level was way off – who was that? There is no “back” button. The moment, and the abnormal value, are both irretrievably lost.

I wish there was a way to go back and double check items I just signed off, a work list made up from what I just did. I wish there was a color only for clinically important results. I wish there was a way my nurse could place more important results near the top of my list.

I wish my EMR had a more clinical feel and less of an accounting one.

I wish my system made it faster and safer to review results, instead of slower and more hazardous.

I guess I just got a touch of the blues, seeing all those meaningless red numbers.

James Taylor, further along in his song, “Millworker” continues to paint the picture of alienation:

“I’m waiting for a daydream
To take me through the morning.”

Well, here is my own daydream about the machine at my work station:

I imagine a better machine, one that shows me the information I need in order to best use my skills to care for my patients. I imagine a machine that shows me results with clinical significance before it shows me the statistically abnormal ones with unlikely significance. If a patient usually has a creatinine of 1.6 and suddenly it is 3.5, that means a lot more than if it goes from 1.6 to 1.5, even though it is still abnormal. Simpler computer programs than an EMR can handle such logic, so why not EMRs?

I imagine seeing a whole chemistry profile in one screen shot, and I imagine the patient’s next appointment displayed right next to the results panel, so I don’t have to click my way over to the next appointment screen. I imagine when I open up a patient’s “chart”, that all new and pending information is visible in the same screen as my office note. I imagine a system that makes my job easier every step of the way. I imagine a system as intuitive as a smartphone.

Interesting thought….I imagine Apple and Google entered the EMR business. Now that’s a daydream with potential.

Free Blood Pressure Check

Published May 23, 2014 Progress Notes 1 Comment

It is a trade secret among patients of many practices: If you’d like to be seen by your personal physician with no waiting and without an appointment, just ask for a free blood pressure check and then mention to the medical assistant that you are not feeling well at all. They can’t send you home without being seen and they don’t have enough to go on to call an ambulance – you are 99% assured to get seen quickly by the doctor.

Today’s free blood pressure-turned-extensive-visit was a diabetic with a history of a heart attack a dozen years ago. She just didn’t feel right, but otherwise had no specific symptoms. She had no chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, headache, dizziness, cough, fever, chills, indigestion, belly pain or anything else to report; she just didn’t feel right.

Her exam was normal, except the mildly elevated blood pressure, which was high enough that the first staff member she saw summoned me.

“I’d like to get an EKG to see if it shows any sign of trouble”, I said.

“I knew you would do that”, Mary Anderson said. “I told my son on the phone this morning “I bet it’s my heart. That’s exactly what I said, but I don’t know why I thought that.”

Her EKG showed new Q-waves in leads III and aVF with T-wave inversions, signs of a heart attack in the lower portion of her heart.

“Mary”, I lectured my patient while we waited for the ambulance, “if you don’t feel right, ask to see me or one of the other doctors. Don’t assume that your blood pressure is the reason you don’t feel well. What if your blood pressure had been normal? Would you just have gone home without getting any help?

Mary is not one to work the system for quicker access to me. In fact, as much as she may like me, she hates having to come to the clinic for her health issues. She would rather be doing her Senior Volunteer work than worry about her own health. She asked for a free blood pressure check because she hoped her blood pressure was off and that this was the simple reason why she wasn’t feeling well. Even though she had worried about her heart, as she told Donald, her son fifty miles away, she admitted she had tried to rationalize her deepest fear away.

The lesson for all of us in health care, beginners as well as seasoned health care workers, is to never assume that the chief complaint is the same as the ultimate diagnosis. This is especially true when the patient’s stated concern is high or low blood pressure, blood sugar, potassium or some other quantifiable parameter. People try to help us narrow our search for the explanation to their symptoms. We must never start our search in the middle, but always from the beginning.

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