Dr. Kim Solez has added some new material on his Facebook including some nice videos about his experiences in pathology and where he sees the future of pathology.  Since delving into his group a little more since my first mention last week I noticed his interests towards digital pathology including some screen shots of an iPhone with a pathology image called "iPerio".  Clever.  There is an application for this of course called Interpath.  I have dowloaded the demo app to my iPhone and can access a gallery of images. Images were slow to open but viewable (and I think diagnosable) once you get there.

He also mentions the possibilities with a 320 GB hard drive (600-1000 slides) or about 40 trays as an average. Laptop on an airplane.  A new opportunity for the pathologist who claims "have microscope will travel" or "circuit riding pathologist". 

As I have mentioned before, while the technology may allow you to do this.  Would you really want to?

Laptop poolside reading cases.  Should you?  CLIA might have a word to say about this.  Professional setting? 

No doubt digital pathology has and is evolving with marked escalation over the past 18-24 months and I think enough pathologists understand now it is not a matter of "if" but "when" for themselves.

It is particularly interesting to hear and see this from a well-known experienced pathologist about the future of our practice and its relevance for those considering pathology as a career.

I encourage you to check out the Pathology Career Group on Facebook.  Thank you Dr. Solez for your insights! Another demonstration of Pathology 2.0!

Win-win breakthrough aligns hospitals and pathologists in Pathology Part A Agreements that deliver added value!

YOUR PRESENTERS:

Robert H. Tessier, Senior Reimbursement Consultant, HBP Financial Services Group, Ltd.

Saraswathi Nair, M.D., Chair, Pathology Department, Norwalk Hospital

Justin M. Clark (Moderator), Director of Operations, THE DARK REPORT, Spicewood, TX

Wednesday April 21, 2010 at 1:00pm EST.

Few pathology groups are happy with their current pathology Part A Professional Service agreements. That's because, too often over the past decade, hospitals and health systems have continually trimmed reimbursements to their pathologists for essential Part A services. As a consequence, in many hospitals, Part A Professional Service contracts fail to reimburse pathologists for even the basic cost of these services. Now there's a better way to negotiate your pathology group's Part A Professional Service contract with your hospital/health system administrators. The innovators using this approach are earning higher reimbursements and report that both pathologists and hospitals are more satisfied with the increased value that results for both parties.

Learn more about this important new strategy when you attend a special DARK REPORT and DARKDAILY.COM audio conference "Negotiating Pathology Part A Reimbursement with Hospitals: Why the Performance-Based Approach Opens the Door to Increased Value" on Wednesday, April 21, 2010.

To understand how performance-based Part A contracting works, listen as Saraswathi Nair, M.D., Chair of the Pathology Department at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut, provides details of the successful program she started at Norwalk Hospital. Find out how she negotiated increased Part A support from her hospital using a well-documented list of accomplishments by her pathology team. And get the tips and strategies you need to implement a performance-based pathology Part A Professional Service arrangement with your hospital or health system. Along with Dr. Nair, you'll hear from Robert Tessier who helped develop this strategy. As the Senior Reimbursement Consultant at HBP Financial Services Group, he played a key role in helping pathologists gather compelling data about their time spent on Part A professional duties and the value that accrues to the hospital as a result of their efforts.

He was instrumental in providing documentation of the financial benefits that proved persuasive to hospital administrators. During this audio conference, Tessier will present details of the steps involved in setting up a performance-based system to help your hospital's administrators better evaluate the job your pathology team is doing. This is the opposite of the "lay-low" strategy because it calls for pathologists to step up and provide a detailed list of benefits to the hospital every day.

Too often, pathology Part A Professional Service agreements with hospitals and health systems turn out poorly for the pathologists. Over the past decade, hospital accountants have regular reduced-and in some cases, even eliminated-payments to pathologists for Part A services. A performance-based pathology Part A Professional Service contract is your pathology group's most effective way to stop this trend, and reverse it in a way that generates a win-win for both the hospital and the pathologists. The performance-based pathology Part A Professional Service contract now being used is a powerful tool that changes the fundamental relationship between pathologists and the hospital. Now, instead of basing Part A reimbursements on the amount of time you spend on the job, you can base it on how well you do that job! It's a strategy and tool set that will revolutionize the way you negotiate your Part A reimbursement.

Whether you're a hospital-based pathology chief, a pathology practice administrator or consultant, a hospital administrator, or anyone who negotiates Part A reimbursements, you'll want to make time in your busy schedule to participate in this invaluable 90-minute session.

Find out how to set goals for your department, and how meeting those goals will help you get the support you deserve. Be proactive: When you show hospital administrators that your department is serious about solving problems and saving money, it creates the opportunity to negotiate a Part A Professional Service agreement that appropriately reimburses pathologists while giving hospitals objectively measured documentation of the pathologists' value.

Register for this audio conference to hear this never-before-shared information. Master the insights about this exciting new strategy for getting the most out of your Part A Professional Service agreement. For pathologists, it's the best way to get the recognition-and the compensation-you deserve. And for hospital administrators, it's a chance to develop a partnership with your pathologists that will provide your hospital with results you can measure-not just hours spent in the lab.

For one low price—just $195 (through 4/9/10; $245 thereafter)—you and your entire team can take part in this fast-paced, insightful audio conference. Best of all, you’ll be able to connect personally with either of the panelists when we open up the phone lines for live Q&A.

Here's just some of what you’ll learn during this in-depth 90-minute conference:

• How to educate your administration about the Part A value that pathologists provide.

• The most effective ways to educate your administration about the Part A value that pathologists provide.

• How to work with your hospital's finance team to quantify lab department improvements and results.

• Simple steps to design a time-study format customized for your hospital.

• How to determine whether a laboratory department fund can be used to seed innovative programs.

• Identifying the importance of "dividend" re-investment by the pathologists.

• How to use the partnership model with academic institutions, community hospitals and commercial laboratories to increase value and pathology Part A reimbursement.

• Using websites, collateral and sales to provide leadership and financial support for marketing.

…and much more!

How to Register:

1. Online

2. Call toll free: 800-560-6363.

Your audio conference registration includes:

*A site license to attend the conference (invite as many people as you can fit around your speakerphone at no extra charge)

*Downloadable PowerPoint presentations from our speakers

*A full transcript emailed to you soon after the conference

*The opportunity to connect directly with our speaker during the audience Q&A session

Register Now! Or for more information, call us toll-free at 800-560-6363.

Distinguished Faculty:

Robert Tessier is a Senior Consultant at HBP Services, a management firm with a focus on hospital-based pathologists. He has more than 30 years of experience with hospital negotiations, first with radiologists and since 1982, with pathologists. His consultations have focused on the need for a detailed evaluation of Part A support in an environment of controlling hospital costs. HBP's clients include pathology groups, hospitals and medical schools. Mr. Tessier has recently been helping pathologists and their hospitals address the value provided by those willing to present their results in addition to time spent. He has also been asked to help develop a performance-based model that makes it easier to justify the hundreds of thousands of dollars that an individual hospital pays for Part A services. Mr. Tessier also has experience with third-party negotiations, hospital joint ventures for histology and cytology, billing system audits and a wide range of areas that help pathology practices achieve effective management.

Saraswathi Nair, M.D. is Chair of the Pathology Department at Norwalk Hospital.

ACCENT® Continuing Education Credit The American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) designates this program for a maximum of 1.5 ACCENT® credit hours towards the AACC Clinical Chemist’s Recognition Award. AACC is an approved provider of continuing education for clinical laboratory scientists in the states of California, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.

By Neil Versel

While EMRs certainly do improve physician-patient communication in person, online and over the phone, systems also can detract from the relationship between doctor and patient, according to a report from the Center for Studying Health System Change.

"[M]y concern now is that we're listening less because we have more information when we walk in the room, and it's not all trustworthy," one unidentified internist said in the report. Other physicians said that the structured nature of EMR documentation reduces the number of open-ended questions they ask, which may unintentionally cause them to miss "subtle or nuanced" symptoms. And, of course, the mere presence of a computer in the exam room might be a distraction. "It's like having a two-year old in the room," said another doctor.

"Just as EMRs can tempt a clinician to disengage from patients, they also can detract from communication within a practice or between clinicians. The use of asynchronous EMR communication tools, such as email and instant messaging where there is a time lag between responses, can be a double-edged sword, according to respondents," the report adds.

The report, which was supported by the Commonwealth Fund, suggests that all of these shortfalls are fixable as vendors refine their products. "Efforts around health information technology implementation at the federal and clinical practice level might incorporate training to improve interpersonal communication skills for practitioners and medical trainees in the presence of an EMR. The modification of office processes and clinical workflows to maximize interpersonal communication while using an EMR is also likely to be helpful," the issue brief says.

To learn more:
- see this Healthcare IT News article
- read the HSC issue brief

Related Articles:
Study: Dual EMR-paper systems may exacerbate communication problem
Mobile email, SMS opening up patient-physician communication channels

By Neil Versel

Rising healthcare costs and prevalence of chronic disease are not merely American problems; they are affecting the delivery of care worldwide. The crunch, says a new PricewaterhouseCoopers report, will push millions upon millions of people to take more control over their own healthcare, often enabled by mobile technologies and the Internet.

"The overarching challenge for incumbent health systems will be to shift their internal focus from a siloed bureaucratic healthcare infrastructure to one that puts the patient at the center...and engages them to be active stakeholders in their health and the health system," the report reads.
In an interview with the Reuters news agency, David Chin, director of the PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute says that the Internet and mobile technologies would help to break down some of the silos, empower patients and save money. He is particularly interested in the potential of mobile monitoring systems. "We're optimistic that the combination of a personalized approach and better technology will improve the health of the population, and start addressing the cost issue," Chin says.
"Of course the advantage to an insurance company or (healthcare) delivery system is that is costs less to deliver care over the Internet," he adds. "You're able to reach a wider audience for a lot less money."

For more details:
- see this PwC press release
- take a look at this Reuters story
- download the PwC Healthcast series of reports

Dr. Kim Solez at the University of Alberta has created a Facebook group after it occurred to her that we as a pathology community may be missing out on the best and brightest young people who might not otherwise enter pathology because there is almost nothing about the discipline on Facebook and YouTube, the entities they commonly use to find out about something. 

I think this type of promotion to medical students will be critical to attract candidates for all medical specialties.  I am optimistic the pathology community can achieve this but remain skepitcal given lack of pathology in medical schools as it has been traditionally taught and lack of exposure to pathologists to help promote our specialty.  The likes of increased use of Web media and networking tools such as USCAP TV will help to showcase pathology in a positive light rather than negative media and impressions.

Please contact Dr. Solez with your suggestions/ideas about what other resources and links would you should be added or any other suggestions on how the site might be improved including  images and video. 

Name: Pathology Careers

Description: A group designed to provide information to premed and medical students considering careers in pathology and laboratory medicine.

Privacy Type: Open: All content is public.