Career

More and more patients are using complementary and alternative methodologies to supplement their healthcare, so it's time for docs to learn more about this growing field. Here's what you need to know about CAM and the role it can play in your practice and patient care.

One of the strange-but-wonderful parts of my new job is that I essentially am responsible for only one thing - taking care of patients.

The doctors who have cared for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of last week's shooting deserve more credit than they've been getting for their heroic efforts.

I'm hopeful that the big first step I've made to improve my own work-life balance is being made in the right direction – that I'm not trading one set of overwhelming professional demands for a new, different flavor of the same degree of overwhelming professional demands. It appears, at least one week into it, to be a change for the better.

Physicians are being caught in the crosshairs of the government's fight against prescription drug abuse. Here's how to protect yourself.

Imagine your practice as a true Patient-Centered Medical Home...

From residency to retirement, your career has a lot of chapters to its story. Each year, we give you the tips and tools you need to help manage the day-to-day occurrences at your practice and enhance your own personal career goals. Here are our top 10 stories on career issues this year, according to our readers.

For better or worse, the public image of American doctors is forever linked to the portrayal of docs on prime time television shows.

Everyone has an opinion and nowhere is that more evident than Practice Notes, our section where your peers and our experts team up to give you advice, news, and other information from the frontlines. From inside the ER to the halls of Washington, D.C., we bring you news and commentary to make you think and sometimes make you laugh. Here are our top 10 stories on career issues this year, according to our readers.

A new study says married couples consisting of a physician and a surgeon are perhaps not as cohesive as you may think and the strain of marital bliss comes under even greater pressure when both partners are surgeons.

The pros and cons of the meaningful use incentive program are not really the problem. The problem is that, once again, we physicians are subject to a mandate over which we have little control and no choice whether to comply.

Have you managed to achieve that coveted work-life balance? We want to hear about it. For this month’s Physician Writer Search, we are calling for essays about finding balance.

In addition to working as an emergency room physician in Alaska, internist Stephanie A. Jaeger found time to become fluent in two languages and work as a translator in Magadan, Russia.

Most organizations do not provide incentives to standardize data management tasks in a way that takes advantage of existing data sources, avoids duplicating data elements, and organizes data in ways that facilitate exchange with other facilities and organizations.

Practices might not be forced to sell out to hospitals, but they will need an alignment strategy, argues expert Marc Halley, MBA, because physician-hospital alignment is here to stay. Here's advice on picking the right partner.

It may sound like a great idea, but there are lots of financial questions to consider first. Do your homework on cashing in before you cash out.

The first step toward standardization is to develop the belief that data is community property, not personal property. This step is hampered when people zealously believe that their approach to the data is the correct one and everyone else should convert to their religion.

Internist Beverly J. Lessane, MD, is a busy doc by day, aspiring country music diva by night.

>Malpractice insurance is not just a major expense for medical practices, it is a requirement. Selecting malpractice insurance can be a complex endeavor. There’s no one-size-fits-all policy, and physicians must be well educated on their malpractice options. What do you need to know to make sure you have the best coverage with the best carrier for your needs? This white paper will provide background and guidance on a topic that is key to maintaining an optimally functioning practice.

You are already dealing with a potential Medicare reimbursement drop, pondering your relationship with an EHR, and managing the day-to-day operations of your practice. But what about issues outside of your work life? Well, it seems to come down to dollars, D.C., and danger.

How three humbling weeks in Senegal changed my perspective

Physicians in The Sunshine State and The Pine Tree State are engaged in an interesting back-and-forth over the American Medical Association and national healthcare reform. You may remember back in August that the Florida Medical Association (FMA) avoided a vote to end its relationship with the AMA over the national body's perceived inaction when it came to the Affordable Care Act.

Happy but worried, American physicians are sorting through the many changes their profession is seeing.

One of the thorniest coding questions is: Can a physician bill for family meetings when the patient is not present? If so, who gets the bill ?

Our July/August story titled “Is Board Certification Overrated?” generated a lot of great letters to the Physicians Practice office, some of which you can read in our September issue. But with too many letters to print and not enough space, we wanted to expand the conversation.

Disaster relief worker, community health promoter, patient advocate? Being a doctor affords you the opportunity to make a difference in your patients’ lives in a number of other ways.

Perhaps Florida surgeon Michael Wasylik summed up the feelings of a lot of physicians nationwide when it comes to the AMA when he recently said, “doctors are so angry they can’t see straight.”

One of the activities during a recent session on work-life balance was to use the Steven Covey grid that breaks down tasks on your to-do list into one of four categories: urgent/important, not urgent/important, urgent/not important, and not urgent/not important.

I think the modern workplace requires a sensitivity to both mothers and fathers and the very admirable roles they wish to play in their children's lives. However, how to maintain professionalism while acknowledging the personal can be a tricky balance.

Opening a new practice? Here are some of the things you will need to get done before the doors open.