Biller Reimbursable Diagnoses in Primary Care Using Modifiers Procedures and Medication Coding

Background: Practice management education continues to evolve, and little information exists regarding its curriculum design and effectiveness for resident education. We report the results of an exploratory study of a practice management curriculum for primary care residents. Methods: After performing a needs assessment with a group of primary care residents at Wright State University, we designed a monthly seminar series covering twelve practice management topics. The curriculum consisted of interactive lectures and practice-based application, whenever possible. We descriptively evaluated two cognitive components (practice management knowledge and skills) and the residents' evaluation of the curriculum. Results: The mean correct on the knowledge test for this group of residents was 74% (n = 12) and 91% (n = 12) before and after the curriculum, respectively. The mean scores for the practice management skill assessments were 2.62 before (n = 12), and 3.65 after (n = 12) the curriculum (modified Likert, 1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). The residents rated the curriculum consistently high. Conclusions: This exploratory study suggests that this curriculum may be useful in developing knowledge and skills in practice management for primary care residents. This study suggests further research into evaluation of this curriculum may be informative for practice-based education. Background Practice management education for residents has traditionally included training physicians in management issues related to the practice environment, including fiscal management, leadership skills, business and management skills, and managed care concepts [1]. Managed care concepts include ethics, communication skills, payment systems, population medicine, informatics and disease prevention. Although in existence since the 1970's, most practice management curricula have focused on managed care concepts, with little attention to the other skills [2-7]. In 2001, educators from Tuft's University wrote a report for curriculum development in the evolving practice environment [8]. This report, which was synthesized from nine component reports of national medical educational organizations, recommended future curriculum development beyond the traditional scope of managed care curriculum. It recommended redefining practice management as a curricular domain of fiscal, business, and practice system management skills distinct from Published: 20 September 2004 BMC Medical Education 2004, 4:15 doi:10.1186/1472-6920-4-15 Received: 20 May 2004 Accepted: 20 September 2004 This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/4/15 © 2004 Crites and Schuster; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.