Family physicians' opinions on the primary care documentation, coding, and billing system: a qualitative study from the residency research network of Texas.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The study's aim was to deepen our understanding of family physicians' perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the widely used US documentation, coding, and billing rules for primary care evaluation and management (E/M) services. METHODS: This study used in-depth, qualitative interviews of 32 family physicians in urban and rural, academic, and private practices. Interviews were initiated with a series of grand tour questions asking participants to give examples and personal narratives demonstrating cost efficiencies and cost inefficiencies relating to the E/M rules in their own practices. Investigators independently used an immersion-crystallization approach to analyze transcripts to search for unifying themes and subthemes until consensus among investigators was achieved. RESULTS: The majority of participants reported that the documentation rules, coding rules, and common fees for procedures and preventive services were reasonable. The E/M documentation rules for all other visit types, however, were perceived by the participants as unnecessarily complicated and unclear. The existing codes did not describe the actual work for common clinic visits, which led to documenting and coding by heuristics and patterns. Participants reported inadequate payment for complex patients, multiple patient concerns in a single office visit, services requiring extra time beyond a standard office visit, non-face-to-face time, and others. The E/M rules created unintended negative consequences such as family physicians not accepting Medicare or Medicaid patients, inaccurate documentation, poor-quality care, and system inefficiencies such as unnecessary tests and referrals. CONCLUSIONS: Family physicians expressed many problems and frustrations with the existing E/M documentation, coding, and billing rules and felt the system undervalued and unappreciated them for the complex and comprehensive care they provide. Findings of this study could inform improved guidelines for primary care documentation, coding, and billing.

The future of monitoring in clinical research - a holistic approach: linking risk-based monitoring with quality management principles.

Since several years risk-based monitoring is the new "magic bullet" for improvement in clinical research. Lots of authors in clinical research ranging from industry and academia to authorities are keen on demonstrating better monitoring-efficiency by reducing monitoring visits, monitoring time on site, monitoring costs and so on, always arguing with the use of risk-based monitoring principles. Mostly forgotten is the fact, that the use of risk-based monitoring is only adequate if all mandatory prerequisites at site and for the monitor and the sponsor are fulfilled.Based on the relevant chapter in ICH GCP (International Conference on Harmonisation of technical requirements for registration of pharmaceuticals for human use - Good Clinical Practice) this publication takes a holistic approach by identifying and describing the requirements for future monitoring and the use of risk-based monitoring. As the authors are operational managers as well as QA (Quality Assurance) experts, both aspects are represented to come up with efficient and qualitative ways of future monitoring according to ICH GCP.

[Acute abdominal pain in the emergency department - a clinical algorithm for adult patients]. / Der akute Abdominalschmerz in der Notfallambulanz - ein klinischer Algorithmus für den erwachsenen Patienten.

Acute abdominal pain represents the cardinal symptom behind a vast number of possible under-lying causes including several ones that re-quire surgical treatment. It is the most common sur-gical emergency, the most common cause for a surgical consultation in the emergency department and the most common cause for non-trauma related hospital admissions. The golden mis-sion statement is to rapidly identify whether the underlying cause requires an urgent or even immediate surgical intervention. However, behind the same cardinal symptom one may encounter harmless or non-urgent problems. By employing diagnostic means cost effectively and with the aim to avoid unnecessary exposure of the patient to X-rays in mind, the challenge remains to identify patients with an indication for emergency surgery from those who suffer from a less serious condition and thus can be treated conservatively and without any pressure of time. Dealing with such a highly complex decision-making process calls for a clinical algorithm. Many publications are available that have scrutinised the different aspects of the initial assessment and the emergency management of acute abdominal pain. How-ever, the large body of evidence seems to miss articles that describe a formally correct priority- and problem-based approach. Clinical algorithms apply to complex disease states such as acute abdominal pain and translate them into one clearly laid out, logically coordinated and systematic overall process. Our intention is to devel-op such an algorithm to approach acute abdominal pain from the surgeon's point of view. Based on daily practice and with reference to available literature, it is the aim of this study to define a work flow that simply summarises all steps in-volved and defines the required decision process in order to form the intellectual basis for an evidence-based clinical algorithm. The result is illustrated as a first draft of such an evidence-based algorithm to allow emergency evaluation of adult patients with acute abdominal pain.

Development of a handheld computer documentation system to enhance an integrated primary care clerkship.

Documentation systems are used by medical schools and residency programs to record the clinical experiences of their learners. The authors developed a system for their school's (Dartmouth's) multidisciplinary primary care clerkship (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics) that documents students' clinical and educational experiences and provides feedback designed to enhance clinical training utilizing a timely data-reporting system. The five critical components of the system are (1) a valid, reliable and feasible data-collection instrument; (2) orientation of and ongoing support for student and faculty users; (3) generation and distribution of timely feedback reports to students, preceptors, and clerkship directors; (4) adequate financial and technical support; and (5) a database design that allows for overall evaluation of educational outcomes. The system, whose development began in 1997, generated and distributed approximately 150 peer-comparison reports of clinical teaching experiences to students, preceptors, and course directors during 2001, in formats that are easy to interpret and use to individualize learning. The authors present report formats and annual cost estimate comparisons of paper- and computer-based system development and maintenance, which range from $35,935 to $53,780 for the paper-based system and from $46,820 to $109,308 for the computer-based system. They mention ongoing challenges in components of the system. They conclude that a comprehensive documentation and feedback system provides an essential infrastructure for the evaluation and enhancement of community-based teaching and learning in primary care ambulatory clerkships, whether separate or integrated.

[Preoperative autologous blood bank: communication, documentation, informed consent, iron supplement, testing, blood bank reports, cost control, transfusion]. / Das präoperative autologe Blutkonservendepot: ein K.R.A.F.T.A.K.T.

Preoperative deposition auf autologous blood requires a strenuous effort for its initiation and operation. K.R.A.F.T.A.K.T. (literal translation: strenuous effort) became therefore the acronym for the program realized at this institution; it stands for: K = communication between patient and his physicians (primary care, surgeon, blood banker) R = direction of the program through the primary care physician (who does what, when, where, how and how much of it) A = informed consent of the patient prior to the first donation F = iron supplement (100mg Fe++ daily beginning 2 weeks prior) T = collection, processing, labelling, storage, pretransfusion testing, and release in accordance with GMP and legal requirements A = blood bank reports on the available units to all concerned K = cost control (limited to operations in need of transfusion) T = transfusion of autologous prior to any homologous unit. We report initial experiences and a cost assessment.

Rehabilitation indicators: a complement to traditional approaches to patient assessment.

Rehabilitation Indicators (RI) form a multipart system for assessing the macrofunctioning of patients in medical rehabilitation. The RI system was designed to provide a holistic view of the patient as a means of integrating the diverse data sets that are obtained at present. The computerization of the RI system creates an easily accessible database to optimize intrateam communication and the sharing of information with patients and families, as well as to optimize the service provider's response to increasing demands for accountability.