13 Comments
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Barb Epstein's avatar

Does “easy access” include ability to contact PCP via patient gateway?

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Jeremy Faust, MD's avatar

Hmm! Sorta?! That’s nuance that the poll doesn’t cover haha

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Sharen B Breyer's avatar

When using wastewater sampling as a metric for tracking H5N1 in birds or cattle, keep in mind that this sampling takes place at municipal water treatment plants handling sewer effluent.

Commercial poultry and dairy farms are typically in rural to suburban areas where wells and septic systems are the norm for water and wastewater, not sanitary sewers and wastewater treatment facilities.

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Jeremy Faust, MD's avatar

That’s an interesting point.

I still say that we need to be testing milk trucks and backtracking from there.

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John Stiller's avatar

Good point

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Moveable Garden's avatar

I asked for an appointment via my patient portal recently on a Thursday and I was in to see my PCP -- who was completely new to me; the last one left about 2 yrs ago and I haven't interacted with that practice since -- less than 24 hours later, on Friday morning at 9 a.m. Got bloodwork results that afternoon and had a scan done within 10 days, with results that evening. The timeframe was much better than I expected. My spouse was referred to an allergist last Oct or Nov and his appointment is in late June (and was originally scheduled for late July but he got a cancellation).

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Thea's avatar

Yes, I like the short takes as a breather between the in-depth articles you do. Those are great, but sometimes it’s nice to smorgasbord.

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Rick's avatar

My primary care doctor guarantees less than two days to appointment if needed. I recently sprained my knee and saw the NP the next day.

I had a chat with my doctor at my regular appointment the other day and was surprised to hear Medicare reimbursement is set to decrease by 5% due to an expiring boost. Looking at EOBs, seems crazy how little Medicare pays providers. He runs an independent small clinic (pretty rare these days) and has increased the number of appointments available by having an NP and PA on staff but turns out these "mid-level" care givers are reimbursed even less under Medicare.

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Jeremy Faust, MD's avatar

Yeah turns out that keeping everything budget neutral means pay cuts.

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JL's avatar

I suspect this poll will be useful for you as a snapshot of your readership, but not much use for anything broader - surely selection bias will skew the results? Could you comment?

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Jeremy Faust, MD's avatar

Yeah that’s true of all of these polls. This is a very specific audience

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MTB's avatar

It depends. Within a week for follow up ED visit, 4-6 months if for annual visit.

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Jeremy Faust, MD's avatar

That’s pretty good

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