Upcoming Primary Care Conference June 8th and 9th.

June 8th & 9th, 2012
Westin Hotel, Providence RI

Co-Sponsored by:
Department of Family Medicine
Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island
Brown University

Click here for this years page and register!

_________________________________________________________

View Dr. John L Bender’s testifying in a Congressional hearing.

about PCMH payment reform in the private sector, based on the PCMH pilot that PQNI physicians are all participating in.

Click here to view the Video

To see his testimony forward to 24:30.

_______________________________________________________

‘Their Own Words: Reflections From Stroke Survivors with Aphasia”

Former RIAFP President Tom Gilbert MD and Joanne Wilkinson, MD will be presenting  this topic for Family Practice Grand Rounds.  At the Memorial Hospital on February 9th as part of the noon conference schedule for the Brown CME.  Below is more information from their website.

Their Own Words: Reflections from stroke survivors with aphasia

Tom Gilbert, MD, MPH was a family physician for 25 years when he had a stroke in 1999. A malformation of vessels in his brain burst and he had a massive brain hemorrhage. The stroke affected the left side of his brain and the right side of his body. Tom underwent a long and laborious rehabilitation process. Learn more about Tom’s story here. One of the side effects of his stroke was aphasia. Aphasia is caused by stroke or brain injury, and causes difficulty in remembering words, speaking, reading, and writing.

Tom is no longer a practicing physician, but he is actively conducting research on aphasia. Along with Joanne Wilkinson, MD, MSc, Tom has longitudinally followed 12 stroke survivors with aphasia. Patients and their partners underwent semi-structured interviews, which were then coded and analyzed using qualitative methods from grounded theory. Tom and Joanne have conducted over 45 interviews to date, resulting in over 650 pages of transcribed data. Learn more about their findings here.

Tom and Joanne have compiled their research on aphasia into an interactive 60 minute presentation entitled “Their Own Words.” This presentation is appropriate for hospitals, universities, and community centers. This presentation is appropriate for continuing medical education approved events such as grand rounds.

Objectives of the presentation are:

1)Understand the scope of long-term implications of aphasia after stroke.

2) Appreciate aspects of physician-patient communication with patients who have aphasia.

3) Understand the role of primary care physicians in treating patients with communication disorders.

See our calendar for upcoming events or email us at ownwords@bu.edu to schedule a presentation.

This research is made possible by support from the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare. We would also like to thank faculty advisors Barbara Bokhour, PhD and Larry Culpepper, MD, MPH (Boston University) and Lynn Brady Wagner (Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital).

Click here for the original article.

The Contraceptive Pearl

The Reproductive Health Access Project (RHAP) is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating family physicians about high-quality, comprehensive reproductive health services. Each month, RHAP produces a new Contraceptive Pearl: an email publication that highlights evidence-based, clinical best practices to improve contraceptive care. The Contraceptive Pearls have been educating clinicians since June 2009. Contraceptive Pearl topics have ranged from highly-clinical Q&A to helpful patient communication tips. Each Contraceptive Pearl contains links to practical, evidence-based clinical tools, scientific publications and patient-centered educational information.

Recently, our Contraceptive Pearls started to include free Continued Medical Education (CME) credit through the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Family physicians in Rhode Island provide critical primary health care services and would benefit from this great opportunity to increase contraceptive knowledge and improve patient care while acquiring CME credit.

RHAP would like your help spreading the word about our Contraceptive Pearls to your network of clinicians. We will be offering free CME credit as part of the Contraceptive Pearl at least quarterly, and we can send you links for these Pearls as they become available. Or, your members can subscribe to our monthly Contraceptive Pearls by clicking here. Your providers may also be interested in subscribing to RHAP’s mailing list so they can stay up-to-date on our training, mentoring and advocacy work.

_________________________

From the President
Investments in Medical Home Model Starting to Pay Dividends
By Glen Stream, M.D., M.B.I.

Posted: 11/8/2011, 5:30 p.m. — It has been five years since the AAFP adopted a policy stating that every American should have a “personal medical home.” In the years since then, the Academy has championed the idea of the patient-centered medical home, or PCMH, with the belief that the PCMH model improves outcomes and lowers health care costs.

AAFP President Glen Stream, M.D., M.B.I.

Although many of you have started — and in some cases completed — the long process of transforming your practices into officially recognized medical homes, some of you have decided that the necessary time, money and effort make it too daunting a task relative to an uncertain financial benefit. In short, you want assurances that your sizable investment will pay off.

Recent events, however, indicate that becoming a PCMH may be an investment worth making:

Maryland’s Multi-payer PCMH Program has distributed about $3 million in its first payment to 54 participating primary care health professionals. Of that total, $2.1 million came from private payers, and $900,000 came from the state’s Medicaid program, according to a recently published report.

Earlier this year, six health plans paid $1.5 million to 236 primary care physicians (3-page PDF; About PDFs) from 11 practices in New York’s Hudson Valley after those practices achieved PCMH recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance.

Skeptics could say these are isolated examples with unnamed docs. Fair enough. Let me tell you about an e-mail I recently received from former AAFP President Jim King, M.D., of Selmer, Tenn., on this very subject. He told me that his practice of seven physicians has received $114,000 in incentive payments this year: $34,000 from CMS’ Physician Quality Reporting Initiative, or PQRI; $35,000 for electronic prescribing, or eRx; and $45,000 in primary care incentive program payments.

King also expressed concern that PQRI and eRx incentives are beginning to decline, and primary care bonus payments are scheduled to stop after 2014. The important thing to remember, however, is that as these programs are phased out, new opportunities keep coming. When they do come along, it’s important to be ready.

For example, last month, CMS and its Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation announced the launch of the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative, or CPCI. CMS plans to collaborate with commercial and state health insurance plans to support primary care practices that deliver coordinated and seamless care.

The program will blend fee-for-service payments with a risk-adjusted per-patient, per-month care-coordination fee that ranges from $8 to $40. Participating practices also will have the opportunity to share in savings resulting from the program. This payment model is what the AAFP has been advocating for some time to reward physicians for coordinating and managing patient care within the PCMH.

In response to the announcement of this plan, AAFP staff members met with America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP — the national trade association that represents health insurance companies — recently. During that meeting, AHIP representatives said that the organization intends to encourage its members to apply to participate in the CMS initiative.

The Academy also has sent letters to each of the nation’s major health insurance plans, encouraging them to participate

CMS will be responsible for recruiting 75 primary care practices in as many as seven markets for the initial phase of the CPCI, with practices applying to participate in spring 2012. The blended payment model will be used for these practices’ Medicare and Medicaid patients, as well as patients enrolled in participating private insurance plans.

The program will be limited to practices that already have achieved Level 3 NCQA recognition and have met meaningful use standards for electronic health records. These requirements reinforce the need for us to transform our practices and to be prepared to participate in such programs.

Although the first phase of this initiative will be limited in scope, CMS officials told me in a meeting recently that they are eager to rapidly and broadly expand the program once it has been shown to reduce costs and improve quality — which it almost certainly will.

Even if you live in an area that is not initially selected for the CPCI, other PCMH pilots from health plans and state Medicaid agencies are likely to use similar formats.

The bottom line is that making the changes necessary to earn PCMH recognition will result in enhanced revenue in the future. Some of you have asked the Academy to show you the money when it comes to the medical home model. The money is coming. Will you be ready to act when opportunity knocks? Click here for the Original Article

_______________________________________________________

RIAFP IN KYRGYZSTAN

RIAFP member Dr. Donya Powers recently returned from a Physicians with Heart trip to Kyrgyzstan. This was Physicians with Heart’s 20th trip to the former Soviet Union and Dr. Powers fourth trip with the program. While in Kyrgyzstan, she visited family medicine offices and training centers and presented lectures and workshops on asthma and respiratory illness at two family medicine conferences. One conferences was located on the medical school campus in Bishkek, the other was held in Chlopon Ata, in the remote Tien Shan mountains. Other members of the group, drawn from AAFP members nationwide, presented on diabetes management, ear problems/otoscopy, a “Day in the Life” of a US family physician, and common dermatological problems. The delegation was joined by three family medicine residents. US Ambassador Pamela Spratlen hosted a reception for the group at her residence.

As in the US, family medicine in Kyrgyzstan struggles with a “narrow specialty” model of care, a legacy of the Soviet “polyclinic” model. Despite their challenges, Powers was impressed with the Kyrgyzstan family physicians. “They kept apologizing for their lack of an EHR and modern exam tables and equipment. Yet, they are able to integrate public health and community oriented care into their practices in a way most US physicians can only hope to emulate. These docs have long term relationships with their patients and communities. I came away reminded that it really is all about the relationship. Seeing docs excel in spite of these challenges renews my own commitment to the specialty.”

Physicians with Heart is a joint program between the AAFP Foundation, Heart to Heart International and the US State Department. The program brought over 10 million dollars worth of donated pharmaceuticals and equipment to Kyrgyzstan. In addition to the family physicians, Heart to Heart volunteers and Academy spouses participate in a children’s project at a local orphanage. In past years, based on local need, an ALSO course has been offered. For more information, please see the AAFP foundation website.

Tar Wars Winner Gives Back

Rhode Island Student Donates Prize Money to Benefit Tobacco-free Program, School

By David Mitchell

Posted: 9/30/2011, 4:00 p.m. — First, Alana McGuinness got the attention of physicians with her artwork. Now, she’s done it again with her generosity.

Alana McGuinness, the 10-year-old from Bristol, R.I., who won the Tar Wars national poster contest in July, donated her $2,000 prize to her school and the Rhode Island Medical Society. Clockwise from top left: McGuinness poses with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Sept. 17 at the Rhode Island Medical Society’s annual banquet; McGuinness and her winning poster; McGuinness presents a $1,000 check to Gary Bubly, M.D., past president of the Rhode Island Medical Society during the banquet; and McGuinness presents her school principal, Cynthia Lorincz, with a $1,000 check.

The 10-year-old from Bristol, R.I., was named the winner of the Tar Wars National Poster Contest July 12 in Washington, D.C., during the annual Tar Wars National Conference, which is the culmination of the AAFP’s school-based tobacco-free education program. The prize — $2,000 — traditionally is used by the winner for a family vacation.

But McGuinness, who has traveled to out-of-state figure skating and gymnastics competitions and has taken family vacations in places like California, Florida, New York and Texas, had other ideas.

“I had vacations that I would have liked to go on,” her father, Kevin McGuinness, said with a laugh. “She came to us and said, ‘Would it be OK if I donated the money? We go on a lot of trips, and I’d like other people to have this opportunity.’”

As the national poster contest winner, McGuinness had the opportunity to participate in the Tar Wars National Conference and visit to Capitol Hill, where she met Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. (click to read the full article)

COD Shows Support for Academy’s Work with Corporate America

AAFP Partners Should Utilize Family Physicians, Say Delegates

By Sheri Porter • Orlando, Fla.

Posted: 9/14/2011, 4:25 p.m. — Family physicians expect organizations that do business with the AAFP to turn to Academy members — family physicians — for the provision of health care to those organizations’ employees.

During the COD, Rhode Island delegate Sarah Fessler, M.D., of Riverside, offers an amendment to a resolution on industry relationships that keeps intact the original intent of the resolution — namely, to move patients of partner vendors into patient-centered medical homes.That was the gist of a substitute resolution adopted by the Congress of Delegates here on Sept. 13.

Alternate delegate David Ashley, M.D., of Saunderstown, R.I., told the Reference Committee on Organization and Finance that the intention of the original resolution was to take advantage of the relationships that the Academy has forged with corporate America.

“We should take the opportunity to advise these companies and teach them about the patient-centered medical home (PCMH),” said Ashley. The Academy could help corporate leaders improve employees’ health and positively affect employee attendance and productivity — “all the buzz words that corporations want to hear,” he said.

(Click here for full article)

________________________________________________

A Note from our President, David W. Ashley MD, MBA

Dear Members:  These are rapidly changing times for medicine, especially for those of us in family medicine.  I just returned from the AAFP annual Congress of Delegates, this year held in Denver.  The weather was great out the window, and that is about as far as we got from the Congress.  Sarah Fessler  and I were there as Rhode Island Delegates, along with Roanne Osborne and John Bossian, as Alternate Delegates.

(Full Article)