Tips: How to Defuse the Angry Patient (or at the Very Least, Make Things...
Handling the angry patient (or family member) is a very delicate situation, so we should all be grateful that we were never educated on this during medical or nursing school. At times, dealing with...
ICD-10 Primer, Quiz 1: Can You Spot the Y92 Code That Isn’t Real?
It is probably safe to assume that every health care practitioner in America has committed the Y92 or “the place of occurrence of the external cause” codes to memory. But let’s see how sharp...
ICD-10 Primer, Lesson 3: Star Wars Codes
Another wonderful strength of the new ICD-10 coding system is not only the increased number of codes dealing with the rare but possible real-life scenarios (V98.2XXA for accident to, on, or involving ice yacht,...
ICD-10 Primer, Lesson 2: Roller-Skate Documentation
A minute doesn’t go by at work without someone talking about yet another patient involved in some roller-skating injury. ICD-9 codes for roller-skating were limited: E006.0 for “activities involving roller skating (inline) and skateboarding”...
Tips for Interns: How to Respond to Your Attending’s Questions
Here are a few short cases to help out our new interns!
CASE 1
Your attending asks you during floor rounds:
“What can you tell me about __________?”
Your best response:
“I can tell you lots about __________…” and...
How to Become Gluten Intolerant
Ever wonder how you can become gluten intolerant even if you don't actually have gluten intolerance or celiac disease? We have found a video that describes how you can become gluten intolerant with some...
An Administrator’s Tips to Health Care Providers for Curing Burnout
Burnout is prevalent. Most of you reading this are burned out. What can we do? How can we preserve our sanity? We sat down with hospital administrator Jason Wilcox in his beautiful office overlooking...
Tips: How to Perform a Spinal Tap on a Moving Train
I have to admit: spinal taps (lumbar punctures) are not one of my favorite procedures to perform. I’m fairly certain our patients don’t enjoy them either. Now imagine performing the procedure on a high-speed...
Tips: How to Worsen Your Already-Terrible Bedside Manner
You may find your bedside manner is pretty terrible given how busy you are and your general frustration with humanity as a whole. If despite these things, you still feel like you’re establishing too...
Tips: Financial Advice for Health Care Practitioners for Tax Day
Ah, April 15; everyone’s favorite day. It is well-known that the tax literacy of healthcare practitioners is pretty laughable. Since I have no financial background, I think it’s fitting that I try to give...