Why Physicians Don’t Want to Retire

A study found most physicians wanted to keep working due to enjoying practicing medicine, the social aspects of their work, and the want to maintain their lifestyle.

from Psychiatric Times

I have been working for nearly half my life and truly enjoy my job and the opportunities it has given me. While retirement isn’t something on the top of my mind, I do look forward to a time when I can spend more time with my family and on doing the things I love to do outside of work. It seems like I am not alone. A recent CompHealth study showed a large number of physicians are also looking forward to retirement for the exact same reason. But while physicians plan to enjoy retirement, the survey found that many are not particularly excited about leaving the profession.

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Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

AMA Urges Senate to Oppose Graham-Cassidy Bill

The AMA calls for the Senate to shut down Graham-Cassidy, which they say would result in millions of Americans losing health coverage.

The American Medical Association has issued a statement on behalf of its physician and medical student members, urging the Senate to reject the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill, citing that the legislation violates the precept of “first do no harm.” They have also requested that the U.S. Senate oppose any other legislation that would “jeopardize health insurance coverage for tens of millions of Americans.” To read their letter to Majority Leader McConnell, Democratic Leader Schumer, and the whole of the Senate, please click here.

What are your thoughts on the proposed legislation and the AMA’s letter?

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

PCPs Spend More than Half of Workdays Interacting with EHRs

A new study of 142 family medicine physicians shows they spend an exorbitant amount of their day on clerical or administrative tasks.

from Health Data Management

Primary care physicians spend an average of nearly six hours—more than half of their workday—performing clerical and administrative tasks in their electronic health record systems. That’s the finding of a retrospective cohort study of 142 family medicine physicians at a large academic healthcare center in southern Wisconsin, conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin and the American Medical Association.

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Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

When Insurers Save, Patients and Doctors Pay

As insurers ratchet up utilization management, doctors’ paperwork burden increases and patients must jump through endless administrative hoops to access care.

from The Doctor Weighs In

Health insurance companies excel at devising new ways to reduce their losses, but it is doctors and patients who pay the price for their utilization management strategies. Doctors now spend more time filling out forms than caring for patients. Patients jump through endless administrative hoops to access care. Both have run out of patience and are demanding a return to a healthcare system where doctors, in partnership with their patients, drive patient care decisions.

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Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

5 Reasons Why Doctors Should Use Social Media

Social media offers doctors opportunities to educate patients, provide better customer service, reduce visits, improve scheduling, and increase loyalty.

from The Doctor Weighs In

There are a number of ways doctors specifically can use social media to expand business, stay in touch with current patients, and inform the public. Once you see the benefits available to your practice, you’ll see the need for a social media presence.

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Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Another Way For Anti-Vaxxers To Skip Shots For Schoolkids: A Doctor’s Note

Families who oppose mandated immunization for schoolchildren may be seeking medical exemptions to get around a new California law, according to a study published Tuesday.

By Ana B. Ibarra and Barbara Feder Ostrov

Dr. Tara Zandvliet was inundated with calls and emails from parents last year, after California passed a law nixing personal beliefs as an exemption from school vaccinations. Suddenly, many parents sought exemptions for medical reasons.

Someone even faked two medical exemption forms purportedly written by the San Diego pediatrician, copying a legitimate document she’d provided for a patient and writing in the names of students she’d never treated, she said. She learned of the forgeries only when the school called for verification.

Only 1 in 10 families contacting her for such exemptions could cite a legitimate reason, such as a severe allergic reaction to a previous vaccine, Zandvliet said. Of those kids with valid health problems, she estimates, only about a third merited the exemption.

Families who oppose mandated immunization for schoolchildren may be seeking medical exemptions to get around the new state law, which requires kindergartners entering public and private schools to be fully vaccinated regardless of families’ personal beliefs, according to a study published Tuesday in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Before the 2016-17 school year, parents who opposed vaccination, or anti-vaxxers as they are often called, could enroll their unvaccinated children in school citing the personal belief exemption, based on religious or philosophical convictions, for example.

After a rampant measles outbreak originating at Disneyland in 2014 that resulted in 147 cases reported across seven states, California scrapped the personal belief exemption. The law, which was hotly contested by some parents, left in place waivers for medical reasons.

Such a stringent policy is fairly unusual. Eighteen states have personal belief exemptions and 47 allow parents to opt out of vaccinations for their children based on religious beliefs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Besides California, Mississippi and West Virgina allow exemptions based on medical concerns alone.

Michigan also recently tackled this issue and required families seeking an exemption to meet personally with local public health departments. After instituting the new rules, state officials reported that the number of waivers fell 35 percent.

The increase in California medical waivers suggests that anti-vaccine parents may be finding doctors willing to exempt their kids from the mandate, according to the researchers.

The study, which used data from the California Department of Public Health, shows that the number of medical exemptions among kindergartners, though small, tripled to 2,850 in 2016 from the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of exemptions for personal beliefs was about four times lower in 2016 than in the year before. (They did not plunge to zero in part because some pre-kindergartners had exemptions that were grandfathered in under the law.)

The state’s law, however, gives doctors more wiggle room to authorize medical exemptions — for example, for children with a family history of adverse reactions to vaccines.

Paul Delamater, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and lead author of the JAMA study, said this reason is inconsistent with the recommendation from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The academy states that medical exemptions should be reserved for students who could truly be harmed by vaccination, such as those with a weak immune system because of chemotherapy or a known dangerous reaction to a vaccine ingredient.

Many of the California counties with the biggest increases in medical exemptions since the law took effect are in Northern California, including Shasta, Plumas, Sonoma and Marin. Some with high percentages of personal belief exemptions before the law had among the greater increases in medical waivers afterward, Delamater said.

In one Southern California county, Orange, the number of medical exemptions went from 92 in the 2015-16 school year to 348 in 2016-17, according to state data. Meanwhile the number of personal belief exemptions decreased from 1,270 to 269 in the same period.

“The medical exemption increase is concerning,” said Catherine Flores-Martin, executive director of the California Immunization Coalition, a public-private partnership that promotes vaccinations and co-sponsored the state’s vaccine law.

Flores-Martin said health professionals expected a short-term rise in medical exemptions because parents previously may have obtained the easier-to-get personal belief exemptions for children who actually qualified medically. But the rise in medical exemptions is greater than she had anticipated, and Flores-Martin said some doctors may be inappropriately offering them to parents on a broad basis.

“It would be unusual for a child to be exempted from every vaccine forever, because that’s pretty extreme. You see patterns [of such exemptions] in some of these schools. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

Her group is encouraging people to contact the Medical Board of California if they encounter doctors writing medical exemptions for conditions like asthma that aren’t included under the state law.

“It really isn’t up to the parents,” Flores-Martin said. “Some doctors may feel emboldened if they … feel they can do that without scrutiny or consequence. It’s an issue that physicians need to address with their peers, and we’re going to help start that conversation. It’s up to the doctors to behave professionally.”

Many parents who don’t want vaccinations for their children, including some vocal opponents from affluent, well-educated regions of the state, say they are concerned that vaccines are linked to autism, despite overwhelming scientific evidence that this is not the case.

Zandvliet, the San Diego doctor, tries to take a judicious approach. Unlike some other doctors, she doesn’t charge extra for writing exemptions. She does, however, require families asking for an exemption to provide medical documentation of the child’s condition before she’ll write one.

Although she said she has not yet written a permanent medical exemption for all vaccines, she has written “medical exemptions lite,” which spare the students from one or more vaccines for a limited period. Sometimes, she will write these for students with siblings who experienced an adverse reaction to the vaccine, although she acknowledges there are no studies showing that it’s useful to do so.

For families seeking exemptions without a health reason, perhaps because they’re misinformed or philosophically opposed to vaccines, Zandvliet takes the opportunity to educate them. Sometimes, she succeeds in getting reluctant parents to partially vaccinate their children, or to spread out vaccines over a longer period than the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends.

“If we stop listening as doctors, we’re going to turn people off,” Zandvliet said. “Doctors are saying, ‘If you won’t go by the CDC schedule for vaccinations, get out of my office.’ So they didn’t vaccinate, and they didn’t protect that child.”

Pamela Kahn, president-elect of the California School Nurses Organization, who works in Orange County, said California has a strong record on vaccinations and there is only so much school nurses can do to educate parents who oppose them.

“Overall, the vaccine rates are really high in the state of California after this law went into effect,” Kahn said. “When you compare the amount of kids that were exempt between both pools, we’re still way ahead of the game.”


This story was produced by Kaiser Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Startup Harnesses VR to Help Train Surgeons

Dr. Shafi Ahmed, M.D. saw the potential of Google Glass to help teach surgeons in locations where they may not have as much exposure to more complex or novel medical procedures.

from R&D

Google Glass received a polarizing response when it was launched in May 2013.

Issues related to privacy, and other factors hindered widespread adoption of the device amongst the general population, but interest in its possible niche applications, particularly within the healthcare space have grown over the past few years.

Cancer specialist and surgeon Dr. Shafi Ahmed, M.D. recognized the potential Google Glass could have in medical training.

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Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Doctors Warm To Single-Payer Health Care

56% of doctors registered either strong support or were somewhat supportive of a single-payer health system, according to a recent survey.

By Rachel Bluth, Kaiser Health News

Single-payer health care is still a controversial idea in the U.S., but a majority of physicians are moving to support it, a new survey finds.

Fifty-six percent of doctors registered either strong support or were somewhat supportive of a single-payer health system, according to the survey by Merritt Hawkins, a physician recruitment firm. In its 2008 survey, opinions ran the opposite way — 58 percent opposed single-payer. What’s changed?

Red tape, doctors tell Merritt Hawkins. Phillip Miller, the firm’s vice president of communications, said that in the thousands of conversations its employees have with doctors each year, physicians often say they are tired of dealing with billing and paperwork, which takes time away from patients.

“Physicians long for the relative clarity and simplicity of single-payer. In their minds, it would create less distractions, taking care of patients — not reimbursement,” Miller said.

In a single-paye system, a public entity, such as the government, would pay all the medical bills for a certain population, rather than insurance companies doing that work.

A long-term trend away from physicians owning their practices may be another reason that single-payer is winning some over. Last year was the first in which fewer than half of practicing physicians owned their practice — 47.1 percent — according to the American Medical Association’s surveys in 2012, 2014 and 2016. Many doctors are today employed by hospitals or health care institutions, rather than working for themselves in traditional solo or small-group private practices. Those doctors might be less invested in who pays the invoices, Miller said.

There’s also a growing sense of inevitability, Miller said, as more doctors assume single-payer is on the horizon.

“I would say there is a sense of frustration, a sense of maybe resignation that we’re moving in that direction, let’s go there and get it over with,” he said.

Merritt Hawkins emailed its survey Aug. 3 and received responses from 1,003 doctors. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The Affordable Care Act established the principle that everyone deserves health coverage, said Shawn Martin, senior vice president for advocacy at the American Academy of Family Physicians. Inside the medical profession, the conversation has changed to how best to provide universal coverage, he said.

“That’s the debate we’re moving into, that’s why you’re seeing a renewed interest in single-payer,” Martin said.

Dr. Steven Schroeder, who chaired a national commission in 2013 that studied how physicians are paid, said the attitude of medical students is also shifting.

Schroeder has taught medicine at the University of California-San Francisco Medical Center since 1971 and has noticed students’ increasing support for a single-payer system, an attitude they likely carry into their professional careers.

“Most of the medical students here don’t understand why the rest of the country doesn’t support it,” said Schroeder.

The Merritt Hawkins’ findings follow two similar surveys this year.

In February, a LinkedIn survey of 500 doctors found that 48 percent supported a “Medicare for all” type of system, and 32 percent opposed the idea.

The second, released by the Chicago Medical Society in June, reported that 56 percent of doctors in that area picked single-payer as the “best care to the greatest number of people.” More than 1,000 doctors were surveyed.

Since June 2016, more than 2,500 doctors have endorsed a proposal published in the American Journal of Public Health calling for a single-payer to replace the Affordable Care Act. The plan was drafted by the Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), which says it represents 21,600 doctors, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer.

Clare Fauke, a communications specialist for the organization, said the group added 1,065 members in the past year and membership is now the highest since PNHP began in 1987.


Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit health newsroom whose stories appear in news outlets nationwide, is an editorially independent part of the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

4 Physician-Recommended Steps to Work- and Home-Life Balance

Physicians often strive for “work-life balance,” but how do you define it? Family physician Sara Taylor, MD, shares some tips.

from AMA Wire

Physicians often strive for “work-life balance,” but how do you define it? Getting the time you need may require a different approach. One physician and wellness expert recommends these four self-driven solutions to help you redefine balance and maintain a successful home and work life.

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Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.

Putting The Scalpel Down: When Should Physicians Retire?

When 23% of physicians are over 65, and there are physician shortages, what are the guidelines for when a doctor should retire?

from The American Council on Science and Health

When is it time to put the scalpel (or stethoscope) down? In an era of rising life expectancies and changing attitudes towards the when and if of retirement; when 23% of physicians are over 65, and there are physician shortages, are there guidelines for what a doctor can or should do? Much about the current state of the ‘aging’ physician is discussed in an article The Aging Physician and the Medical Profession A Review in JAMA Surgery by Dellinger, Pelligrini, and Gallagher.

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Disclaimer: The viewpoint expressed in this article is the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the viewpoint of the owners or employees at Healthcare Staffing Innovations, LLC.