Roupen Odabashian: This book belongs to one person – the patient
Roupen Odabashian, Hematology and Oncology Fellow at
”Medical notes are pages in a patient’s book, where physicians, nurses, and all health care providers are authors. However, ultimately, this book belongs to one person: the patient.
The primary purpose of medical notes is to communicate among healthcare providers, creating a coherent narrative that aids everyone in patient care.
However, after many years in healthcare and witnessing how medical notes are written, I’ve grown frustrated with the industry’s operations.
Regrettably, medical notes have become a billing tool that ensures physicians receive payment from insurance companies and governments. Unfortunately, these agencies have checklists, requiring each note to meet specific content criteria to justify payments to physicians.
This system has led to the rampant use of copy/paste, resulting in increasingly lengthy notes that most don’t fully read. Typically, the beginning of such notes contains excessive unwanted information, with the crucial details often found in the last section, the impression and plan. Communication in healthcare will not change or improve as long as a single-payer dictates payment based on a criterion more geared towards rejecting physician claims than enhancing patient care.”
Source: Roupen Odabashian/LinkedIn