Are You Ready?

Are you having a little anxiety while you are learning the government regulations this summer for the new requirements for the quality measurement program that will apply to your future? OFP has you covered with an article on Osteopathic Approach to Anxiety. You can do this. Thought you just needed to learn how to diagnose and treat patients? Well that idea should have passed by now. We continue to type, check this box and that box, and provide peer-to-peer prior authorizations (which are only a fraction of the ones the staff is doing.)

I often wonder if someone landed from Mars and watched our crazy system for a day, what would they think? (It is complicated I hear.) The idea that two people in my little office call the insurance company and stay on hold for half an hour to get permission for my patient to get an imaging study that was suggested by the imaging professional or a drug they have been on for years is bizarre. In addition, Medicare is going to increase the number of these calls like this in my office by 50% in six months. Are you ready?

The anxiety article is great and includes diagnosis and treatments with the inclusion of osteopathic manual medicine. Reading it will give you to tools to relax this summer.

Also included in this issue is a review of the literature article, Adverse Childhood Experiences: A Call to Action for Osteopathic Medicine, focusing on adverse childhood events and how they may affect the future of a person, especially their health. This information has been building for thirty years in the literature. Make time for some positive childhood experiences this summer with the children in your lives.

However, if you are heading for the beach, the Melanoma for Primary Care article will certainly motivate you to avoid sunburn and give you a review of the ways to best to do that.

In the research article, Tobacco Use & Sleep Problems Among Active Duty Service Members, the small study documents that not only is smoking unhealthy it also affects the sleep of active duty service members.

Continuing with our visual clinical image series, we have a little nugget for you but I’m not going to give you the answer so the suspense will keep you reading the journal through to the end.

Don’t forget to take a break and enjoy some summer down time.