Musings on Medicine and the Health Care System

Grand Rounds: Best Medical/Health Blogs on the Internet

Just a reminder that I need your recommendations for Grand Rounds for GetBetterHealth. On Tuesday, June 22 I’ll be posting on my own blog an overview of the best stuff out there for the week with an emphasis on postings that focuses on customer service in health care. Want to get your blog considered? Email me directly at debra@debragordon.com and put “Grand Rounds” in the subject line.

Remember: DEADLINE is Monday morning at 10 a.m. eastern.

You can read all the details here.

Happy blogging!

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I’m Hosting Grand Rounds!

Just what every non-MD fantasizes about: hosting a Grand Rounds! Ok, ok, it’s not the kind of grand rounds in a hospital where I get to impart my vast medical knowledge to other healthcare professionals (a good thing, too, given that the initials after my name are MS [master of science in biomedical writing] not MD). Instead, it’s the Grand Rounds for GetBetterHealth, a blog site for all things medical/health related. Grand Rounds is a weekly summary of the best health blog posts on the Internet.

What this means is that I will post a blog here (that will be carried on Get Better Health and other sites), aggregating the best blog postings in the health/medical field that week. For my Grand Rounds–which will appear Tuesday, June 22, 2010–-I’d like to focus on a subject near and dear to my heart: customer service in healthcare (you can read a post on the topic here).

So if you’re interested in having your blog on this topic promoted (or you write an awesome health/medical-related blog and want me to feature it), email me directly at debra@debragordon.com. Put Grand Roundsin the subject line and give me a one-paragraph description of your blog. You’ll … Continue Reading

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Customer Service in Healthcare

Just read an article about a new web-based service called MedWaitTime that allows patients to check if their doctor is running late before heading to the office for their appointment, kind of like you can check to see if your flight is late before heading to the airport.

Brilliant.

Nothing peeves me more than sitting in a doctor’s office reading 4-month-old tattered magazines on topics I care nothing (Saltwater Fishing? Seriously?) not because the doctor had an emergency (when is the last time a dermatologist had to run out to save someone) but because the office staff routinely double books. I can’t count the number of times I walked out (my limit is 30 minutes unless I’m in agony) after giving the front office a targeted piece of my mind.

Since we’re on the topic of customer service as it applies to medicine, here are few other areas in which medical offices and their staffs could improve when it comes to customer service:

Get a web site and put the paperwork you need from us online. Filling out forms with a pen is so 1990s. In fact, how about letting us book appointments online? My mammography center does this and … Continue Reading

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Your Health on Stress

the futureSo I’ve been thinking a lot about stress lately. Obviously, it’s because I’m in one of those work/personal periods where the word comes in all capital letters and my dreams seem to be caught on a continual loop of taking-an-exam-in-a-class-I-forgot-to-attend-all-semester (and yes, I’ve been out of school for 26 years now)/realizing-I-just-bought-a-new-house-and-have-to-move/or, finding-that-I-have-10-stories-due-tomorrow (for the newspaper at which I haven’t worked in years).

This latter dream comes closest to my own situation at the moment given that I find myself with just a wee bit too much work for the time allotted (ok, maybe a lot too much work). I’m coping–going to bed later, getting up earlier, reaching out to a couple of writer friends for help) but it nonetheless has my cortisol and norepinephrine hormone production on overtime.

Which brings me to the point of this blog. Your health on stress.

I can’t begin to count the number of articles I’ve written over the past 25 years about the effects of stress on health. It’s one thing to write them, however, it’s another to actually see them. For instance, my 17-year-old son is … Continue Reading

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The Future of Social Media

the futureSo you’re probably wondering what I’m doing blogging about social networking when this is a blog about health and medicine and medical writing. Well, just consider:

Thousands of tweets are sent every hour about health/medical issues. Want a cool way to follow them? Check out Health Tweeder. Thousands of health care professionals, medical organizations and healthcare facilities have Facebook pages. And I’m sure that’s only the beginning; those, together with Linked In, are the only social networking sites I currently use so that’s all you get for now. Anyway, I’m here at the American Society of Journalists and Authors annual meeting in NYC. Our lunch speaker was Peter Shankman, social media guru and PR maven. His advice was not only hysterically funny (explaining to the under-30 crowd in the ballroom that MTV used to have music videos–not reality TV–and that telephones used to have cords) but right on. Among his nuggets of wisdom we would all be wise to listen to: Be transparent. If you screw up, admit it. If someone is paying you to hawk their product, admit … Continue Reading

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I’m Scared

eyeFirst, apologies for my absence; “real” work has interfered.

Now, the explanation for the title of this blog. I’m scared because I’m reading articles about people threatening to kill–note that word “kill”–elected officials because of their vote on healthcare reform.

A man was arrested last week for his threats against Nancy Pelosi; another man was arrested for threatening the two senators from Washington state, saying: “I do pack, and I will not blink when I’m confronted. … It’s not a threat; it’s a guarantee.” One congressman’s campaign received an email that read:   “If our tea parties had hoods, we would burn your (expletive) on a cross an the White House front lawn,” while another had bricks thrown through the windows of his brother’s house (which was listed as his official address) and the propane line to his gas grill was cut.

The Associated Press reported that the Senate’s Sargent-at-Arms, who monitors security in both houses, reported 42 incidents in the first three months of this year,  nearly three times the 15 cases that occurred during the same time last year, and all related to … Continue Reading

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What Are They Smoking?

jointA member of the American Medical Writers Association freelance listserve recently posted this help-wanted ad from Craig’s list:   

“We’re looking for an experienced analyst/wordsmith to make sense of the health care bill. We will pay a per-project fee for a  qualified writer to put some hard work into summarizing the bill in an 8-10 page white paper. We have a strong preference for individuals with a background in Sociology, Policy Research, Health Care, or  statistical analysis. Above all – however – you should have some  clippings to point us to so we can evaluate your writing chops.

As you can see, this report will include a lot of information, but it’s important that you are succinct and clear in your prose. Think of it as a detailed study done by a respected think tank, but produced for the average consumer.”

The “fee” (and I use the term loosely) for this “detailed study”? $100. Which wouldn’t even cover the cost of toner to print out the full bill for reading!

Hence the title of this blog.

The people behind this posting are not the … Continue Reading

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Pulling the Covers Over Your Head

SnoringMy alarm clock  is set to “radio” and my radio is set to the local NPR station. Now, I’m not one of those people who leaps out of bed when the alarm goes off. Instead, I lie in bed slowly waking up to about 15 or 20 minutes of the morning news. This morning however, the news just made me want to pull the covers over my head and never get out of bed. That’s because the focus was healthcare reform, and the amount of misinformation and, yes, I have to say it, stupidity out there about what the current proposals will or won’t do is making me literally sick to my stomach.

And then there’s what my own state–Virginia–has done. For those of you who eschew the news (and you’re pretty smart to do that these days given how depressing it is) the Virginia General Assembly passed–and the governor promises to sign–a bill authorizing the Attorney General and his staff to assist Virginians who want to opt out of mandatory health insurance, should health reform pass. In other words, the state that is … Continue Reading

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Swimming in the Health Insurance Risk Pool

swimming poolGather round boys and girls. Today’s lesson is on “risk pools.”

Before you pull out your iPhone to ward off the boredom you assume will come, know this: the concept of risk pools is at the heart of today’s healthcare reform debate.

To understand risk pools, you first have to understand the basic concept of insurance. Insurance is something you buy in case something happens. The more people buying the same type of insurance, the less risk the insurer faces that it will have to pay out for that aforementioned “something.”

So, for instance, if an estimated one out of eight women (about 12%) will get breast cancer in their lifetime, and an insurance company only insures eight women, then it knows, for sure, that one of those women will get breast cancer and it will have to pay large medical claims (in addition to all expenses) from the premiums it collects from just those eight women. So you can bet those eight women are going to pay huge premiums!

Now imagine that same health insurance company insuring 8 million women. Of those … Continue Reading

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