The Podcast by KevinMD

"The primary benefits for mobile care units are the fact that they decrease patient travel times by arriving at their residences and ensuring that appointments are never missed. It also relieves the stress of finding transportation for dialysis patients, outright eliminating the need for the CMS to find alternative transport methods for patients. By utilizing mobile care units alongside health IT solutions for preventive care services, the CMS can finally do the impossible and establish a basic health care standard for rural citizens." Thanh Tran is a health IT executive. He shares his story and discusses the KevinMD article, "Will U.S. health care match Native Americans’ treatment of chronic kidney disease?" (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/05/will-u-s-health-care-match-native-americans-treatment-of-chronic-kidney-disease.html)

"While physicians provide a vital service to the U.S., they often have blind spots when it comes to maintaining their own financial health. Many in the medical field believe that financial planning is as simple as having an IRA account and that estate planning will be taken care of by a will. Unfortunately, particularly for those in this profession, financial planning is more important than ever, and President Biden’s proposed tax changes could have a profound effect on physicians’ financial planning in particular. Working with a fiduciary financial advisor to understand how the new laws affect physicians and implementing strategies that can lessen the impact is key to navigating these changes." Syed Nishat and Aadil Zaman are partners, Wall Street Alliance Group. They are regularly quoted and interviewed in media outlets like Medical Economics, Forbes, US News, Bloomberg, and Yahoo Finance. This special episode is the audio version of the webinar, "President Biden's tax proposal and its effects on estate and income tax planning for physicians," sponsored by Wall Street Alliance Group. (http://www.wallstreetag.com/) Watch the full webinar. (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/07/president-bidens-tax-proposal-and-its-effects-on-estate-and-income-tax-planning-for-physicians.html)

"President Joe Biden recently signaled that a multi-trillion-dollar spending plan for our country should be paid for by the rich corporations and wealthy individual Americans who make over $400,000. Doctors fit the latter category and should tune in. Beyond the government, the unique qualities of doctors make us a target for many who want to access our high income and our business revenue. Our passivity to these poachers places us at great risk because they recognize that we lack the time and proficiency to avoid them. Add our financial illiteracy to this, and you have a recipe for stakeholders reaching into our paycheck every pay period and inconspicuously taking their share from us. Let’s take a look at the stakeholders who are targeting us." Tod Stillson is a rural family physician who does surgical obstetrics and teaches residents and medical students. He is also founder, SimpliMD, Doctor Incorporated, and The Employed Physician’s World Facebook group. He is also the author of You Are a Target Strategies For Doctors to Keep More of Their Money. He shares his story and discusses his KevinMD article, "Doctors beware: There’s a $400,000 target on your back." (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/06/doctors-beware-theres-a-400000-target-on-your-back.html)

"What if I had access to real solutions? What if I had resources to provide to a person to help them overcome their problem? As a primary care provider with over 20 years of experience, I know viscerally that I will never “fix” anyone. I can teach, I can guide, I can comfort; but I’m never going to fix a single person. Still, I wish I had more to offer. In my current iteration, I take care of people experiencing homelessness. Having spent much of my career taking care of people with homes, I’m currently grant-funded to care for people experiencing homelessness. The problems, I find, are not fundamentally different, but the phenotype, the manifestation of common, universal problems, such as social isolation, poor nutrition, insecurity, addiction, comes with sharper edges." Nancy Connolly is an internal medicine physician. She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "What if this physician had access to real solutions?" (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/05/what-if-this-physician-had-access-to-real-solutions.html)

"I think doctors are just wired that way. We are productive. We get things done. It is expected. We are supposed to do more, do it all, and be all the things to all the people. We come to a point where we try to satisfy this, and then we cannot do enough for ourselves. We cannot rest. We must keep trying to check things off the list to get things done. And it is overwhelming. It does lead to burnout. I am still a work in progress. I am writing this on a work night because it is burning in my brain, wanting to come out. Perhaps I should be doing nothing, resting for a full day. But if I do that, I will feel guilty that I have wasted this time when I could have been putting my thoughts down on paper. The mind is always going. This is me, but I think it applies to many other physicians. Look at your habits and see if you have some of my same tendencies. If you do, let’s start talking about how to reverse this tide of overwhelm to create some time for yourself when you are doing nothing and not regretting it." Marion McCrary is an internal medicine physician and can be reached at Marion McCrary Wellness. She shares her story and discusses her KevinMD article, "Why doctors can’t rest." (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/05/why-doctors-cant-rest.html)

"It’s rare for anyone to try and tally the precise cost of unnecessary care. But when they do, the estimates are staggering. The Washington Health Alliance, a nonprofit dedicated to making care safe and affordable, analyzed insurance claims from 1.3 million patients who received one of 47 tests or services that are considered overused or unnecessary. What they found should make patients and doctors rethink that next referral. In a single year, more than 600,000 patients underwent a treatment they didn’t need, costing an estimated $282 million. More than a third of the money spent on the tests went to unnecessary care, their study found. Unnecessary medical care has 'become so normalized that I don’t think people in the system see it,' Dr. Vikas Saini told me. Saini is president of The Lown Institute, a Boston think tank focused on making health care more effective, affordable and just. Lown researchers have shown how overtreatment happens across the spectrum of medical care. Doctors may push for Caesarean sections for their own convenience, not so moms and babies can be healthy. Breast cancer, prostate cancer and thyroid cancer get over-diagnosed, leading to harmful and costly treatment. Around a third of colonoscopies are unnecessary, research has shown. That’s not just wasting our money. It’s also putting us at risk of harm." Marshall Allen is a journalist and author of Never Pay the First Bill: And Other Ways to Fight the Health Care System and Win. He shares his story and discusses his KevinMD article, "How to avoid treatment you don’t need." (https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2021/06/how-to-avoid-treatment-you-dont-need.html)