According to Brenda Reiss-Brennan, PhD, mental health integration director for Intermountain Healthcare, the first step toward integrating behavioral health into primary care is to stop thinking of patients with mental health issues as “other.”
Sixty years ago, an American who made it to 65 could expect to live an additional 14 years. Today, Consumer Reports notes, it's 19 years. So how do we grow older healthfully so that we can enjoy those extra years?
No matter whether you've just hit 50 or are well on your way toward the century mark, there are strategies that can help you stay healthy, keep you socially and intellectually engaged in the world around you and create a living situation that is comfortable and safe.
Increasing access to primary care services in poor and rural communities means approaching the issue on multiple fronts, including telemedicine, patient engagement, and coordinated care, a payer's report suggests.
Rural and economically disadvantaged areas of the country pose a daunting challenge to boosting primary care services, a recent UnitedHealth Group study has found. But there is no single pathway toward expanding access and capacity, it suggests.
"Approximately 50 million Americans live in areas with an under-supply of primary care physicians. Most of these areas are rural," says the report, "Advancing Primary Care Delivery: Practical, Proven, and Scalable Approaches."
Third-year medical student Elizabeth Junkin works with a patient while Dr. Julia Booth observes. UA News
Per medical school curriculum, an MD candidate is exposed to various types of medicine and specialties in order to gauge their interests and acquire hands-on experience.
With this norm, it may be hard to gain insight into real, long-term medical care. The University of Alabama School of Medicine seeks to remedy this with a new pilot program called Tuscaloosa Longitudinal Community Curriculum (TLC2).
A recent study described 60 persons who returned to an emergency department (ED) within 9 days after being discharged from it. (The study, "Return Visits to the Emergency Department: the Patient Perspective," was published online on September 2, 2014, in Annals of Emergency Medicine.)
In most cases, that subsequent ED visit was a quest for follow-up care for the condition that had originally brought the person to the ED. Most of these patients did report having a primary-care provider they could have consulted instead.
Despite a projected surge in primary care visits as a result of coverage expansion, only one in six recent medical school graduates say they will pursue primary care as their field of residency, survey data from UnitedHealth shows.
Better access to primary care doctors is linked to reduced hospital admissions and emergency department visits, a report from UnitedHealth Group's Center for Health Reform & Moderation shows.
It’s no secret that America has a shortage of primary care physicians and that the shortage is only going to get worse as the Affordable Care Act provides access to care for more U.S. citizens.
Phoenix has one of the worst physician shortages in the nation, according to a recent BetterDoctor.com ranking.
Universal American Corp. (NYSE:UAM) announced today that the Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) it formed in partnership with primary care physicians generated $57 million in total program savings for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of the Medicare Shared Savings Program for program years 2012 and 2013.
A bill introduced by John Sarbanes (D-MD) would address the nation's primary care physician shortage by funding pilot programs for mid-career, retired, and retiring physicians to continue practicing medicine.
There's a bill floating around in Congress that addresses the nation's primary care physician shortage.
It's called the Primary Care Physician Reentry Act. It's sponsored by Rep. John P. Sarbanes, (D-MD), and there's plenty to like about it.
IT may have been the most influential magazine article of the past decade. In June of 2009, the doctor and writer Atul Gawande published a piece in The New Yorker called “The Cost Conundrum,” which examined why the small border city of McAllen, Tex., was the most expensive place for health care in the United States.
