The following is a formal justification for use of a limited number of CPT® codes under the US Copyright law fair use exemption in the soon-to-be-released mobile app EP Coding. Introduction As CPT® codes are copyrighted by the American Medical Association, it is important to make the case that use of a very small… Continue reading Fair Use Justification of CPT® Codes in EP Coding
Category: Electrophysiology
Winding Down
The countdown clock app on my phone reads 73.6 days. That is the number of days until January 1, 2014. My retirement day. It has been a good run. I graduated from Dartmouth Medical School in 1976, got married, and have practiced medicine ever since. I went through internship and residency in Rhode Island, thought… Continue reading Winding Down
The Evils of CPT®
Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) codes are 5 digit codes for billing procedures performed by physicians in the United States. The use of these codes is mandated by all insurers and the whole CPT® coding system forms Level I of the CMS (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid) Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS) code set. The system is… Continue reading The Evils of CPT®
The MOC Program’s Story (With Apologies to Lewis Carroll)
… They had not gone far before they saw the MOC Program in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart would break. She pitied him deeply. What is his sorrow? she asked the Gryphon, and the… Continue reading The MOC Program’s Story (With Apologies to Lewis Carroll)
Some Suggestions for the DOJ
Having pretty much wrapped up their investigations into ICD malfeasance amongst implanters (OMG, this ICD was implanted only 89 days following a stent!!), the Department of Justice (DOJ) is probably casting around to find the next bushel of low-lying fruit. Here are some suggestions for future investigations. (Disclaimer: my lawyers advise me to state emphatically… Continue reading Some Suggestions for the DOJ
EPIC Bullying
I got word through my medical director at work today that the hospital administrators had been contacted by the EPIC electronic health record software company about this post, and demanded that the screenshots of the EPIC user interface be taken down. Offsetting my pride that someone had actually noticed and read my blog was the… Continue reading EPIC Bullying
From Android to iOS: Coding
EP Mobile is now on iTunes, putting an end to the arduous process of porting the program from the Android to Apple environment. The version on the App Store is feature by feature equivalent to the Google play version. As addressed in my post on porting the user interface, the look and feel of iOS… Continue reading From Android to iOS: Coding
Game Review: EPIC EHR
UPDATE (2/20/13): EPIC has banned my use of the screenshots. The original post follows, considerably damaged by the lack of screenshots. Thanks a lot, EPIC! Here at EP Studios we don’t often venture into the entertainment realm of computing, but alas here we’ll make an exception, given the medical subject of this game. EPIC EHR… Continue reading Game Review: EPIC EHR
From Android to iOS: User Interface Issues
As my project to migrate EP Mobile from Android to iOS progresses, there might be some of you who are interested in some of the obstacles that I have had to deal with. These obstacles are numerous and non-trivial. The programming languages (Java vs Objective-C) are completely different. The programming IDEs (Eclipse vs Xcode) are… Continue reading From Android to iOS: User Interface Issues
Medical Guidelines and the Evils of Algorithmic Medicine
A succinct and humorous definition of time was written by the otherwise forgotten pulp SF writer Ray Cummings in his 1922 story The Girl in the Golden Atom — “Time is what keeps everything from happening at once.” For a busy EP doctor though, time isn’t doing a very good job of preventing everything from happening… Continue reading Medical Guidelines and the Evils of Algorithmic Medicine