J Am Board Fam Med
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Nearly every state offers loan repayment (LRP) and some offer loan forgiveness to clinicians who commit to work in safety net practices. The effectiveness of these programs from the perspective of safety net practices is largely unknown. OBJECTIVES: To assess safety net practice administrators' assessments of key outcomes for the 3 principal types of state service programs: LRPs funded by states, LRPs funded jointly by states and National Health Service Corps, and loan forgiveness programs. ⋯ Participants are perceived to practice good quality care (96.9%) and be positive contributors (92.4%). Administrators' assessments are generally similar for the 3 types of programs. CONCLUSIONS: Administrators of safety net practices generally perceive states' loan repayment and loan forgiveness programs succeed in helping them recruit and retain good clinicians.
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Family physicians who report their race as "Other" in a single best option question find the existing categories and forced choice of one category to be problematic. Our analysis of open-text responses in the "Other" race category supports a modification in the way these data are collected to provide more accurate and meaningful ways to understand the workforce and move toward more diverse, equitable, and inclusive policies in family medicine.
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Most research on the use of telehealth in lieu of in-office visits has focused on its growth, its impact on access, and the experience of physicians and patients. One important issue that has not gotten much attention is the potential for telehealth to significantly increase physician capacity by reducing nonvalue adding activities and patient no-shows. We explore this in this article. ⋯ Our study provides evidence that a major benefit of using telehealth for many routine encounters is a reduction in wasted physician time and a substantial increase in the number of patients that a primary care physician can care for without jeopardizing access to care.
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The mental health of patients and clinicians before and during the pandemic are investigated and reported by multiple investigators. Improving health through practice change is challenging but possible. Telehealth increased dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic; what is its future?
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Social isolation among older individuals is associated with poor health outcomes. However, less is known about the association between social isolation and memory loss, specifically among Medicare enrollees in large, integrated health care systems. ⋯ The strong association between social isolation and memory loss suggest the need to develop interventions to reduce isolation and to evaluate their effects on potential future memory loss.