MSV Blog Posts

Colorectal Cancer Screening: 4 Steps for Success in Your Practice

By Arthur Vayer posted 03-07-2023
Are you talking to your patients about colorectal cancer screening? Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month is an important time for conversations with your patients about the disease, including screening and prevention — because your patients are more likely to have seen, heard, or read information about it right now. It’s also the perfect time to assess how your own practice is doing with patient screenings, because you know screening is the secret weapon in the fight against cancer. Setting up your practice for colorectal cancer screening success is as easy as following 4 steps recommended in a guide by the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable (NCCRT), ...

8 Ways for your Patients to Stay Healthy for the Holidays — and Beyond!

By Harry Gewanter posted 12-22-2022
During this hustle-bustle season it’s important to remind your patients to stay focused on their health. First, they want to be able to enjoy family, friends, and festivities throughout the holidays. Second, they’ll want to be at their best for whatever the new year brings, like a big vacation or a family wedding. And last, their annual “be healthier” new year’s resolution is already on their mind. The truth is your patients can start fulfilling their resolution to be healthier right now — there’s no need to wait until January! To help you help your patients, we’ve created a list of 8 great ways to stay healthy for the holidays — and beyond. We’ve written ...

National Preparedness Month: Prepare Your Practice for Emergencies

By Taylor Cepeda posted 10-12-2022
The best time to prepare for a disaster is before it hits — well before it hits. This seems obvious, but National Preparedness Month is here to remind us to take action and plan. Physician practices may lack comprehensive planning that protects the business and outlines “What to do when…” The consequences can be disastrous to your patients if they can’t count on you for care, as well as disastrous to your practice’s staff, operations, and financial well-being. Most recently, the pandemic has been an extended exercise in disaster management, considering how quickly and completely it turned the medical world upside-down, and how long its impacts have ...

Cybersecurity: 10 Steps to Protect Your Patients’ Data and Privacy

By Taylor Cepeda posted 10-12-2022
As more and more of our everyday lives and information move online, cyber risks from hackers, malware, denial of service attacks, and ransomware attacks continue to increase. There are cybersecurity risks to everything from the nation’s energy infrastructure to personal health and financial data — with the latter putting physician practices squarely in the risk zone. Generally speaking, what’s at stake? Breach of privacy. Loss of data. Loss of money. Service disruption. And even loss of trust — trust in technology, certainly, but people also lose trust in an organization responsible for a cyber breach. Especially for physicians, having and keeping your patients’ ...

How to Use Online Reviews to Your Advantage, Even When They’re Negative

By Taylor Cepeda posted 08-22-2022
Posted on behalf of Tracey Cumberland Project Director, Client Operations for Curi Advisory , Curi’s business unit dedicated to helping practice leaders protect, optimize, and grow their businesses with confidence Medical practices are no exception to the rule that a strong online presence is essential to maintaining a thriving business. How and when you respond to online reviews is a key element of that presence—what’s often called online reputation management , or ORM. Online reviews are used extensively by consumers to pick everything from mouthwash to medical care. A 2020 survey by Software Advice found that 90% of people use online reviews ...

6 Tips for Talking with Your Patients about Breastfeeding

By Lindsay Gould posted 08-11-2022
Despite the fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends exclusive breastfeeding for a baby’s first 6 months of life , many women do not breastfeed — whether they aren’t successful, they had to stop early, or this option wasn’t accessible for them. The reasons are unique to every mother. However, it’s never been more important to talk with your patients about breastfeeding. The AAP recently updated its breastfeeding guidelines as well as issued a call for more support for breastfeeding mothers to help overcome challenges like stigma, lack of support, and workplace barriers. In addition, the national formula shortage has certainly brought ...

Physician Shortage: Solutions to Protect Physicians, Patients, and Healthcare Delivery

By Jenny Young posted 07-12-2022
Within 12 years, the U.S. faces a physician shortage of between 37,800 and 124,000 physicians — which balloons to between 102,400 and 180,400 if underserved populations had healthcare-use patterns similar to those with fewer access barriers. These shortage projections by the Association of American Medical Colleges include between 17,800 and 48,000 primary care physicians, and between 21,000 and 77,100 non-primary care physicians. Unfortunately, the shortage is already very apparent. Despite the fact that the number of U.S. physicians is on the rise, there aren’t enough physicians today to meet needs. Physician numbers just aren’t growing fast enough ...

21 Men’s Health Tips for Your Patients

By Mark Monahan posted 06-21-2022
There’s a “hack” for everything these days, and the internet has no shortage of hacks claiming to improve health. Some “health hacks” have value, although many do not. As a physician, you know you can’t hack good health. Maintaining good health is being intentional about making a series of everyday choices and decisions, including managing risk factors like age and family history of diseases. Your male patients also know they can’t hack their health — though their actions might say otherwise. To help you help your male patients stay as healthy as they can, we’ve put together a list of 21 men’s health tips for your patients. And they start with going to the ...

VMAP: Helping to Address and Improve Children’s Mental Health

By Ryan Fulton posted 05-16-2022
As many of us already know, our nation’s youth is in a mental health crisis , as recently reported by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. This crisis has been developing for years. The pandemic did not cause a mental health crisis among our nation’s children but exasperated it while exposing challenges that existed prior to adding COVID-19 to the mix. The challenge to address and improve children’s mental health is urgent. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, 1 in 5 U.S. children has a diagnosable mental health disorder . For our nation's teens this has been significant. While factors like teen sex and school bullying are down and LGBTQ acceptance ...

What is the MSVPAC? Why MSV’s Political Action Committee is so important

By Taylor Cepeda posted 04-11-2022
Posted on behalf of co-authors and MSVPAC Board Members Trisha Anest, MD and Robert Glasgow, PA-C, MPAS, MPH -- When you need to make an important decision but you’re not familiar with the subject area, what do you do? You consult an expert to get the details you need to help you make an informed decision. The goal of MSV’s nonpartisan Political Action Committee (MSVPAC) is to do just that: provide legislative decision-makers with the information, data, and details they need to make informed decisions about healthcare-related issues and policies. Despite the fact that healthcare issues are at the top of the agenda for our legislators here in ...

Help Patients Make Healthy Eating a Priority — Even On the Go

By Mary Schmidt posted 03-21-2022
“I want to eat healthy, but I just don’t have the time.” Sound familiar? For National Nutrition Month, it’s important to recognize that time is the one thing we never have enough of. Just like you, your patients have long to-do lists and busy schedules. Unfortunately, when time is short, healthy eating often goes out the window. You know diets high in saturated fat, sodium, and sugar can lead to conditions like obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease. In fact, most of the sodium we consume comes from restaurant, processed, packaged, and store-bought food — the very things we reach for when we’re in a hurry. It’s important ...

Telephone Communication for Healthcare Providers: Safety Strategies

By Taylor Cepeda posted 02-28-2022
I am sharing the latest MSV blog post written by Nicole Franklin, MS, CPHRM, Patient Safety Risk Manager II, The Doctors Company When casually or carelessly conducted, telephone communications can lead to diagnostic errors and misunderstandings that may culminate in professional malpractice claims. Mitigate Malpractice Risk: Telephone Communication with Patients Creating comprehensive, clear guidelines for telephone encounters with patients is critical in mitigating risk. Establish practice guidelines and ensure that all office and clinical staff are trained on their roles in communicating with patients by telephone. Protect yourself ...

As Corporate Entities Enter Healthcare, Practices Can Respond via Patient-Centered Care

By Taylor Cepeda posted 02-02-2022
I am sharing the latest MSV blog post written by Richard E. Anderson, MD, FACP, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Doctors Company and TDC Group Retail medicine and private equity are important drivers of primary care delivery in the U.S., and they are poised to become even more so. Corporate entities have always been involved in healthcare, but now mega corporations—from outside the medical space—are entering the field. The involvement of these large non-legacy corporate entities in healthcare is growing and is challenging—and while this trend brings some benefits, it will also impact how all clinicians provide healthcare. In a single quarter ...

Physician Self-Care Is Mission-Critical Today

By Arturo Saavedra posted 11-08-2021
There’s no question COVID-19 has up-leveled physician stress and burnout — which you know all too well was already a challenge for medical professionals. Quarantines. Increased patient loads. Staff absences and shortages. Fear of exposure. Supply anxiety. New PPE protocols. Vaccinations and vaccination status concerns. Decreased practice revenue and increased costs (link is external) . Patient fear. Misinformation. Telehealth visits and their related technology demands. Delayed patient health screenings and treatment. The list goes on. And that’s all on top of issues already facing physicians and PAs every day before the pandemic. We’ve all ...

Back to School with COVID-19

By Michael Martin posted 09-17-2021
Virginia’s students head back to school during COVID-19 for the second year in a row. Variants like delta, lambda, and now mu continue making news. With mask protocols in place for students and vaccine availability evolving for children, it’s a lot for parents and students to keep up with. This blog is for you to share with your pediatric patients and their families to help them navigate the current COVID-19 landscape. COVID-19 VACCINE VACCINE EFFECTIVENESS: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing serious outcomes for those who get sick with the virus, including severe ...