Winding Down

The countdown clock app on my phone reads 73.6 days.  That is the number of days until January 1, 2014.  My retirement day. It has been a good run.  I graduated from Dartmouth Medical School in 1976, got married, and have practiced medicine ever since.  I went through internship and residency in Rhode Island, thought… Continue reading Winding Down

The Evils of CPT®

Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) codes are 5 digit codes for billing procedures performed by physicians in the United States.  The use of these codes is mandated by all insurers and the whole CPT® coding system forms Level I of the CMS (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid) Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) code set.  The system is… Continue reading The Evils of CPT®

Some Suggestions for the DOJ

Having pretty much wrapped up their investigations into ICD malfeasance amongst implanters (OMG, this ICD was implanted only 89 days following a stent!!), the Department of Justice (DOJ) is probably casting around to find the next bushel of low-lying fruit.  Here are some suggestions for future investigations.  (Disclaimer: my lawyers advise me to state emphatically… Continue reading Some Suggestions for the DOJ

EPIC Bullying

I got word through my medical director at work today that the hospital administrators had been contacted by the EPIC electronic health record software company about this post, and demanded that the screenshots of the EPIC user interface be taken down.  Offsetting my pride that someone had actually noticed and read my blog was the… Continue reading EPIC Bullying

From Android to iOS: User Interface Issues

As my project to migrate EP Mobile from Android to iOS progresses, there might be some of you who are interested in some of the obstacles that I have had to deal with.  These  obstacles are numerous and non-trivial.  The programming languages (Java vs Objective-C) are completely different.  The programming IDEs (Eclipse vs Xcode) are… Continue reading From Android to iOS: User Interface Issues

Medical Guidelines and the Evils of Algorithmic Medicine

A succinct and humorous definition of time was written by the otherwise forgotten pulp SF writer Ray Cummings in his 1922 story The Girl in the Golden Atom — “Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.”  For a busy EP doctor though, time isn’t doing a very good job of preventing everything from happening… Continue reading Medical Guidelines and the Evils of Algorithmic Medicine

Computerized Medical Documentation: Disappointing So Far

It’s usually some minor irritation that gets me into blog-writing mode, much as a grain of sand forces an oyster to produce a pearl.  Judging by the dearth of blogs I have written recently, one might assume that my life has been remarkably free of irritation lately.  That’s not the case.  I’ve just been too… Continue reading Computerized Medical Documentation: Disappointing So Far