Articles: pandemics.
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The Medicare Primary Care Exception (PCE) permits indirect supervision of residents performing lower-complexity visits in primary care settings. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Medicare expanded the PCE to all patient visits regardless of complexity. This study investigates how PCE expansion changed resident billing practices at a family medicine residency during calendar year 2020. We hypothesized that residents not constrained by the PCE would bill more high-level visits. ⋯ With the PCE expansion, senior family medicine resident physicians at UWFMR used higher-complexity billing codes at a rate approximating that of attending physicians. The findings of this study have implications regarding the financial well-being and sustainability of primary care residency training and raise a relevant policy question about whether the PCE expansion should persist. More research is needed to determine whether these findings were replicated in other primary care residency practices, the impact on resident education, and the impact on patient outcomes.
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Current publications on the topic of communication in intensive care units (ITS) are shaped by the experiences of the COVID19 pandemic and the restrictions on personal contact and communication experienced during this time. Virtual, computer-based and telemedical concepts have grown out of this situation with limited contact and communication possibilities with patients and their relatives, but also between the individual service providers in the health system. It can also be assumed that artificial intelligence will increasingly be an issue in communication in intensive care units in the coming years. However, the significance, consequences and risks of the use of these new possibilities remain to be seen.