Journal of general internal medicine
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When patients lack sufficient health care insurance, financial matters become integrally intertwined with biomedical considerations in the process of clinical decision making. With a growing medically indigent population, clinicians may be compelled to bend billing or reimbursement rules, lower standards, or turn patients away when they cannot afford the costs of care. ⋯ Caring for the underinsured in the current health care climate requires an understanding of billing regulations, a commitment to informed consent, and a beneficent approach to finding individualized solutions to each patient care/financial dilemma. To effect change, however, physicians must address issues of social justice outside of the office through political and social activism.
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The Ethical Force Program is a collaborative effort to create performance measures for ethics in health care. This report lays out areas of consensus that may be amenable to performance measurement on protecting the privacy, confidentiality and security of identifiable health information. ⋯ This process established consensus on 34 measurable ethical expectations for the protection of privacy and confidentiality in health care. These expectations should apply to any organization with access to personally identifiable health information, including managed care organizations, physician groups, hospitals, other provider organizations, and purchasers. Performance measurement on these expectations may improve accountability across the health care system.
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Review
Detection, evaluation, and treatment of eating disorders the role of the primary care physician.
To describe how primary care clinicians can detect an eating disorder and identify and manage the associated medical complications. ⋯ Primary care providers have an important role in detecting and managing eating disorders.
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Editorial Comment Review
I can't get no patient or practitioner satisfaction.
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Editorial Review
Entering the electronic age: risks and challenges for JGIM.