Doctors, patients aren't discussing deadliest subjects July 17, 2018

In the fee-for-service world, the rushed doctor visit has been linked to a number of consequences for both physicians and patients. According to Forbes, one of the consequences is that physicians and patients don't have the time to talk about the deadliest subjects: just 1 in 10 doctors regularly inquires about opioid abuse, and only 20 percent discuss mental health.

Pennsylvania has one the largest full-time legislature in the nation, and this election season will see plenty of highly competitive races within the Commonwealth enhanced by nearly 30 retirements in the House and Senate. That means this year's election will bring many changes of consequence to the PAFP. Pennsylvanians have until Oct. 9 to register to vote.

That's according to a columnist at Philly.com, who writes in the age of specialty medicine, we often lose sight of the value of the primary care doctor who coordinates care, functions as the "captain of the team," and knows the patient best; it's time to change the reimbursement system to truly value primary care and family physicians for what they do.

It's important for patients to maintain continuity of care, which means cultivating a long-term relationship with a family physician. According to a new study, patients who have been seeing the same physician for years are in luck: Healthline reports researchers have found regular contact with the same doctor resulted in fewer patient deaths in a recent study.

The Pennsylvania Dept. of Health has just launched a prescriber education initiative called Evidence-Based Prescribing: Tools You Can Use to Fight the Opioid Epidemic. The curriculum teaches best practices for using the state's prescription drug monitoring database. All courses are free and qualify for 1 CME credit each; they're available on the TRAIN PA website.