Jeffrey Brenner is best known for his ground-breaking work with high-need patients in Camden, New Jersey, where he founded the Camden Coalition and changed how we all think about caring for this subset of our patients. He joins us this week and talks with us about how a shooting and subsequent relationship with the Camden … Caring for high need, high cost patients with Jeffrey BrennerRead More »

How many times have you treated a dental infection in your primary care office, or spent 10 minutes after a visit googling a dentist that takes your patient’s insurance? We’ve all done it too many times. There is an epidemic of dental disease in the United States – dental care is expensive and difficult to … Our Oral Health Crisis with Mary Otto, author of TeethRead More »

David Rosenthal, Thomas Kim, and Audrey Provenzano discuss the landmark study published in Annals of Internal Medicine by Sinsky and colleagues, Allocation of Physician Time in Ambulatory Practice: A Time and Motion Study in 4 Specialties. Have you ever wondered how much time you spend each month fighting with technology or filling out VNA forms? … Reprise – Journal Club: Sinsky et al, Allocation of Physician Time in Ambulatory PracticeRead More »

Can we solve chronic disease using a medical model? In this episode, the first in a series with speakers from the 2017 second Starfield Summit, we talked with Dr. Lloyd Michener – the principal investigator of the Practical Playbook, which facilitates the integration of primary care and public health – about why primary care clinicians need … Partnering Primary Care & Public Health — Lloyd MichenerRead More »

We are tremendously lucky to welcome health policy expert John McDonough as our guest this week. He has had a long and distinguished career in public service as well as a scholar and advocate. We talk about his work as a member of the MA state legislature for 13 years (discussed in his book Experiencing … A Career in Public Service & Drafting the ACA – John McDonoughRead More »

Today we’re joined by Lauren Taylor, a health services researcher based at Harvard Business School, where is she is earning her doctorate in health policy and management. Prior to joining HBS, Lauren co-authored The American Health Care Paradox, which has become required reading at a variety of medical and public health schools across the country. Our discussion … Reprise: Integration of Healthcare & Social Services with Lauren TaylorRead More »

This week Thomas Kim, David Rosenthal, and Audrey Provenzano talk about three recently published manuscripts for a lightning round edition of Journal Club. Thomas shares a paper by Bynum et al, Outcomes in Older Adults with Multimorbidity Associated with Predominant Provider of Care Specialty, examining outcomes among patients primarily cared for by specialists vs primary … Journal Club: Lightning Round! Primary care vs Specialty care, Doorknob moments & Cost effectiveness of buprenorphine initiation in the EDRead More »

Primary care models integrating behavioral health services are being adopted across the country. This week, we talked with two leaders at the Lynn Community Health Center (LCHC), Dr. Mark Alexakos and Dr. Kiame Mahaniah, about their experience with integration. LCHC is unique among community health centers in that it started out as a mental health … Integrating Primary Care & Behavioral Health at Lynn CHC: Kiame Mahaniah & Mark AlexakosRead More »

All of us like to think that we provide high-value care for our patients; but the truth is, just like the rest of the health care system, primary care provides a lot of low value care too – and we drive a lot of overuse. John Mafi joins us this week to talk about his … How do we improve the value of care delivered in primary care? with John MafiRead More »

Have you ever felt lonely and overwhelmed in a clinic room with a patient whose needs are far beyond your skills and ability to meet? I have, many times, and so has our guest this week, Dr. Lori Tishler. Dr. Tishler is the Vice President of Medical Affairs at Commonwealth Care Alliance, a not-for-profit organization … Lori Tishler of Commonwealth Care Alliance – Caring for the Most Vulnerable PatientsRead More »