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NCSC Throwback Thursday

As I talked about in yesterday's post, one of the fun things that #FMRevolution can do is to share photos and memories from past NCSC meetings. What you'll see below are pics from the meetings I attended including 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2007. You'll have to figure out which year goes with which picture.

In addition, I'll be live podcasting on Thursday, April 24, 2014 at 3pm Eastern Time at this link. The Mike Sevilla Radio Program will be previewing next week's AAFP NCSC 2014 meeting including my predictions, my hopes, and my expectations from the meeting. Don't worry if you cannot join live. I'll make the podcast available here, so that you can download and listen to on the flight to Kansas City :)

Why #FMRevolution Will Explode Next Week

One of the many cool things about twitter is that once in a while, you find a really cool link. Our pal Dave Tran, who is in the last few weeks of Medical School (aka @rollkicksoul), posted some interesting data about the #FMRevolution hashtag.

In the above graph, you see that the first posts of #FMRevolution were just about 3 years ago in 2011. And then, in that time, there have been as much as 4,000 tweets with the hashtag. I gotta tell ya, it looks really cool when the data points are graphed out like this.

Those high points in the graph area associated with conferences with many #FMRevolution people including the AAFP Congress of Delegates (every fall; hashtag #aafpCOD) and the AAFP National Conference of Special Constituencies (every spring; hashtag #aafpNCSC and #aafpALF). I would presume that for other advocacy groups, peak times on twitter are conferences were many advocates attend.

So "Why Will #FMRevolution Explode Next Week?" Well, the reason is that the 2014 AAFP National Conference of Special Constituencies start next week. If I had to guess, this will be the biggest gathering of the #FMRevolution so far in 2014. My bold prediction will be a record number above 5000 #FMRevolution tweets during the course of the meeting next week.

The other interesting #FMRevolution graphic from Symplur is above which shows those who are leaders in "Mentions," "Tweets," and "Impressions." Now, don't get me wrong, we're all on the same team, so the leaders - to me - are not too concerning.

What I'm really impressed with is the statistic of 106 million impressions on twitter in the past 3 years. There have also been 42,790 tweets during that time from 3,834 participants. Those statistics are amazing to me.

It has been very gratifying to watch the community grow in the past couple of years. As I meet Family Physicians at meeting, as I give social media talks around the country, I tell people the #FMRevolution story. The community grows one person at a time by telling our story of why we love Family Medicine and why we love social media to tell that story. Look out Kansas City, the #FMRevolution returns next week!

Why Only 10 Minute Appointments?

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One of the most common questions that I get is this one: "Hey Doc, why only 10 minute appointments?" I read this fascinating article today from Kaiser Health News dated April 21, 2014 entitled, "15-Minute Visits Take A Toll On The Doctor-Patient Relationship." I definitely encourage you to read it.

I know you're not surprised when I tell you the reason comes down to money. There is an actual formula that the article defines a term called "Relative Value Units" to calculate physician fees. In essence, the formula was how the fifteen minute visit was created.

The article does a great job talking about the plight of the Primary Care Physician. In the 1990s, "Managed Care" came in a cut physician fees significantly. The only way to try to recover these losses, was to increase volume, meaning seeing more patients per hour and per day.

In the last section of the article, it states that having less time for a patient/physician interaction is bad. Duh. Like we didn't know that. Some physicians have solved this problem by leaving all insurances behind. This is what sparked the current Direct Primary Care surge and the associated concierge medicine models.

Other models have popped up as well, including the Patient Centered Medical Home model in which providers are paid a "per member per month" fee and this hopes to relieve the financial strain of the current system, and hopefully gets more time with the physician & patient.

The only way to preserve the Physician/Patient relationship is to try to ensure more appointment time to cultivate and foster this relationship. One thing we do know is that our current system does not do this. Hopefully, with innovative and creative health care models, solutions can be found to gain more time during office visits and improve Physician/Patient communication.

Letterman Retiring in 2015

During his show tonight, David Letterman announced that he would be retiring in 2015. The video link is below which shows the explanation from his show tonight.

Being in high school in the late 1980s, one of the things I looked forward to was to watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and then Late Night with David Letterman. The next day, my buddies and I would be repeating the jokes that we heard the night before. Those guys made me imagine about being a funny talk show host, and, in fact, influenced how I do my silly podcasts now.

Late night talk show television has changed so much since my high school days. And, I admit that I don't watch too much of it anymore. However, the influence of Carson & Letterman will be seen in late night talk show hosts of the future, and television will never be the same again....

Mental Illness Vs Gun Control Debate: Again

Last night, twitter sprang into action again announcing another shooting in Fort Hood, Texas. Yes, that Fort Hood. You know, the one where there was an active shooter five years ago where there were 13 dead and more than 30 injuries.

And, just in an instant, the 24 hour cable news cycle changed from obsessed about MH370 to this story. In addition, this morning there was a report of a shooting at Kent State University. Yes, that Kent State University where 44 years ago next month, leaving four students dead and nine others injured.

It is inevitable in the next 24 hours, if it hasn't happened already, that the partisans will take their place again on social media and start blaming the other. One side will say, "We really need more gun control this time!" The other side will say, "We really need more help for the mentally ill this time!"

I have written about guns, the mentally ill, and everything else dozens of times on this website. This post today is not to score political points. This post is again to vent my frustration about actually solving the problem. I blame both political parties and their surrogates who are high on rhetoric but low on solutions.

As everyone says during situations like this: What's it gonna take to try to solve the problem? The press are going to continually mention the list: Fort Hood, Fort Hood again, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and on, and on, and on. What's it gonna take, really?

NephMadness 2014 Preview Podcast

Happy World Kidney Day 2014! Thanks to the guys from NephMadness 2014 for being guests on Episode 326 of the Mike Sevilla Radio Program. In the video above, you'll see the opening moments of the show.

The idea for NephMadness pairs together National Kidney Awareness Month (which is this month of March) and the US NCAA National Basketball tournament (also known as "March Madness"). The beginning of our podcast interview talk about what a "Nephrologist" is and why they are important for patients and the US healthcare system.

We then talked about NephMadness 2014 which begins this Sunday, March 16, 2014 at their NephMadness website. Participants get to select teams who will advance in their "tournament" and you will have the opportunity to select the eventual winner of the tournament.

In NephMadness, you will learn more about the specialty of Nephrology and why kidney function is important - especially for particular diagnoses like Diabetes. Last year, there was a lot of fun on twitter in which people were "trash talking" others and their picks. Follow the fun this year using the hashtag #NephMadness

You can listen to the entire audio podcast interview in the player above and in the player below. You can also download the audio file here and listen anytime to the show. Welcome to those of you clicking over from the NephMadness website. I invite you to check out my website, along with my links on twitter, Facebook, youtube, linked-in, my podcast, and more!