by Steve Berkowitz | Mar 21, 2016 | Uncategorized
You will be NOT be judged (and paid) on how well you performed, but on how well you were coded Did you ever play the game of telephone at a party? A person tells a story to another, who then in turn tells the story to the next person, and on down the line. The last...
by Steve Berkowitz | Feb 26, 2016 | Uncategorized
Several years ago it was indeed disturbing to find out that the national 30-day readmission rate for patients discharged with diseases such as heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia was almost 25%. Fortunately, since becoming a publicly reported measure and a...
by Steve Berkowitz | Feb 14, 2016 | Uncategorized
Every health care provider I know, as a part of their core curriculum during training, studied the pioneering work of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. In her 1969 book “On Death and Dying” she described five stages that patients experience during these difficult...
by Steve Berkowitz | Feb 3, 2016 | Uncategorized
When I speak to health care executives at conferences, I enjoy posing two situations to the attendees: Looking at the administrators, I say “If a physician tells you I have done it this way for twenty years, I hope it scares the heck out of you”. I then...
by Steve Berkowitz | Jan 28, 2016 | Uncategorized
I don’t know about you, but during this election year I am sure getting tired of the opinion polls. A day does not go by when the media doesn’t report some survey results. Americans have to be the most polled people in the world. (Although interestingly...
by Steve Berkowitz | Jan 6, 2016 | Pain Management, Pharma, Uncategorized
An Unrecognized Cause of Medication Errors Out-Patient generic drug vendor substitutions I went to refill my medication this week and my pharmacist informed me that my usual medication is now being purchased through a new vendor. What last month was an orange pill now...
