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South Macomb Internal Medicine

Warren, MI

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Improving The Patient Experience: Part 1 – Covid & Flu Vaccinations

September 10th, 2021

By Dr. Scot Goldberg, MD

Hello everyone!  I hope you are doing well, and we are introducing a series around how we work towards improving the patient experience!  A little background on this and some highlights of the initiative as outlined by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan:

Medicare Star Ratings is a rating system developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to help consumers find the best Medicare Advantage plan for them. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has two MA plans – Medicare Plus Blue℠ for its PPO members and BCN Advantage℠ for its HMO members.

The Patient Experience

Improving The Patient Experience

CMS assesses a member’s health plan experience through the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems, or CAHPS, member survey. The survey asks patients to report on their experiences with a wide range of health care services. A large portion of the CAHPS survey is driven by the member’s experience with his or her physician’s team, including such things as follow-up on labs and imaging, and getting timely doctor appointments.

And, most importantly for patients, a positive patient experience results in better adherence to protocol, better relationships with health care providers and a feeling of mutual respect between them and their medical team.

Covid-19 and Flu Vaccines

We know that our entire team can affect the health of patients and how they assess their health care experience, so we are going to discuss a number of points of emphasis starting with Covid-19 and Flu vaccinations!

First let’s talk about boosters.  The newest data coming out of Israel (which is administering the most boosters to date) is that they are very effective and safe.  We still are not sure if they are necessary because we haven’t seen a big increase in cases among vaccinated individuals.  We are happy to discuss your options with you.

As for Flu – the high dose is in and available and they are first come first served for those aged 65 and over.  We expect an increase in flu this year since people aren’t quite as socially distanced as they were at the height of the pandemic.

These are the types of very real questions that we know many of you have based on our interactions with you at our office.  We are doing our very best to keep up with the up to the minute data so that we can provide the best experience for our patients!  Check back for part 2 which will focus on hypertension!

Stay safe everyone! 

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South Macomb Internal Medicine

28401 Hoover Rd.  Warren, Michigan 48093

Phone: (586) 276-7530

South Macomb Internal Medicine has been designated a Patient Centered Medical Home by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/SMIMdoc!

Feel free to click on the categories and keywords below to find more content as we add more to the website!

Some Current Thoughts On Covid-19 – Delta and Where We Are Now

August 20th, 2021

By Dr. Scot Goldberg, MD

We have had plenty to say here on this blog about Covid-19.  We’ve covered plenty of angles from encouraging people to get vaccines, to remembering not to neglect your “other” (non-covid related) health, to myth-busting and more, and I wanted to add some current thoughts.  As we have seen this continues to be a fluid situation with the Delta variant now being the dominant strain and causing serious problems around our country.  There are still too many people who have not been vaccinated and the CDC is set to approve booster shots soon for those who have.

So what do you do?

Current Thoughts

Well, for starters we still can’t emphasize enough how important it is to get the vaccine if you have held out up until now.  We still feel strongly about this.  The vaccines are indeed safe and effective.  But beyond that we also say maintain a cool head and get back to the basics that we were using before there was a vaccine – washing your hands, using common sense with social distancing, using a mask indoors perhaps – just make good choices while we’re in this surge.

We also want you to read what we feel is an outstanding article published this week on KevinMD.com.  It goes into some detail about the Delta Variant and the vaccine, but there is no slant here.  No politics – this isn’t a big media source – just a doctor writing it, in fact a psychiatrist with some really interesting insights on this.  We encourage you to digest what is said here and share it with whomever needs to hear it from any standpoint.  That includes people who follow the science and those who don’t trust it.  Democrats, Republicans, anti-vaxxers & vaxxers, anti-maskers and maskers – anyone.  Let’s talk it out.  Let’s help each other.

Stay safe and call us with any questions!

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South Macomb Internal Medicine

28401 Hoover Rd.  Warren, Michigan 48093

Phone: (586) 276-7530

South Macomb Internal Medicine has been designated a Patient Centered Medical Home by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/SMIMdoc!

Feel free to click on the categories and keywords below to find more content as we add more to the website!

 

Let’s Talk About White Coat Syndrome – For Real This Time

We recently posted an article on our Facebook page from themuse.com entitled 10 Reasons You Should Go To The Doctor (Even When You’re Healthy).  It’s a bit of a recurring theme we’ve returned to in the context of a COVID-19 pandemic that doesn’t seem to want to completely go away (GET VACCINATED if you haven’t yet – yes it’s safe).  We don’t want people to neglect any other health issues they may have that went untreated while they were home avoiding the virus for a year or so and Dr. Goldberg wrote about that too.  We want people to take care of their health and see their doctor even when they are healthy as the article states.

White Coat

But maybe it’s not that easy for everyone.

We’ve written about White Coat Syndrome before on this blog but the one time we made it a featured topic it was all in good fun with a humorous take on why you might have it.  However we do acknowledge (as we did in the humorous post) that it’s certainly real for many and we want to explore that in a little more detail.

In our humorous post on the topic we included a link to this article from Medical News Today that goes into great detail about White Coat Syndrome – what it is, diagnoses, and even prevention, but that article is a little light on the prevention part.  We would like to point you to another one very thoughtfully written by a family practice in South Carolina called Thrive Family Medicine about how to overcome it with several actionable tips.  We hope this helps!  The last thing we would ever want to see is one of you avoiding a check up because of your anxiety over visiting the doctor’s office.

Take care of yourselves, thank you for reading and we will see you soon!

 

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South Macomb Internal Medicine

28401 Hoover Rd.  Warren, Michigan 48093

Phone: (586) 276-7530

South Macomb Internal Medicine has been designated a Patient Centered Medical Home by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/SMIMdoc for updates, articles and fun!

Call us and ask to be added to our email newsletter that comes out every couple weeks!

Telehealth and virtual appointments are still available.

Nutritional services are also available with Nanette Cameron, RDN. Don’t forget to ask us for a $25 gift certificate for trying dietary services with Nanette the first time for patients who have insurance coverage!

Feel free to click on the categories and keywords below to find more content as we add more to the website!

10 Fantastic Medical Blogs You Should Bookmark!

July 15th, 2021

We are always looking for topics to blog about, reading other blogs and writing our own blog and while searching the Internet we came across a list of 75 Top-Notch Medical Blogs Every Health Care Pro Should Know.  Some of them are great, some not quite as great, some really technical, and some are extinct already.  So in going through them we thought we would take the time to identify the 10 that we thought you should check out with the links to each one!  Click, read, learn and enjoy!

Medical Blogs

10 Fantastic Medical Blogs You Should Bookmark!

Harvard Health Blog  It’s Harvard.  Enough said right?  This aesthetically pleasing blog covers a wide range of topics from a source you can trust.  Quality reads but they won’t be over your head.  Whether it’s heart health, nutrition, fitness, cancer research or more you’ll find it all here.

Well  Similar approach to the Harvard blog in that a wide range of topics are covered.  This is the New York Times health blog and there are many articles that are topical to current events as well.

Health Essentials  This is the blog of the Cleveland Clinic and there are great articles here – including the first one we saw about a potential cure for peanut allergies in children!

KevinMD.com  This is the blog for us doctors!  Articles about the profession, the challenges, the rewards – written by doctors for doctors!

Medgadget  Fascinating stuff here about the latest in medical technology for you techies!  Want to know about the latest technique for minimally invasive diagnosis of thyroid cancer out of South Korea?  You’ll find articles like this here!

Science Daily – Medical Technology News  Another in the cutting edge category like Medgadget – fascinating stuff here if you want to know the latest in technology.

Life Of A Med Student  We’ve highlighted the top medical schools on Facebook and we love to encourage our young people who are looking at a life in medicine – if you are one of those then this blog is for you!  Great advice here.

Medical XPress  This site reads like a newswire of up-to-date medical news and research.  Pretty cool – it tells you the age of each entry (1 hour ago, 4 hours ago…)!

Dr. Barnard – Physicians Committee  As you know we focus on nutrition here quite a bit with many posts here on this blog by Nanette Cameron, RDN.  This blog is nutrition focused with a food-as-medicine approach.

Global Health Council  This one helps put global health issues into perspective to help us understand how they impact us – how health concerns in certain countries can impact the rest of us.  Obviously topic has been important over the last year and as the world has gotten “smaller” it will continue to be.

So there you go!  So much great information that we can all use to be informed, take care of ourselves and each other and make the world a better and healthier place!  Which is your favorite?

 

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South Macomb Internal Medicine

28401 Hoover Rd.  Warren, Michigan 48093

Phone: (586) 276-7530

South Macomb Internal Medicine has been designated a Patient Centered Medical Home by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/SMIMdoc for updates, articles and fun!

Call us and ask to be added to our email newsletter that comes out every couple weeks!

Telehealth and virtual appointments are still available.

Nutritional services are also available with Nanette Cameron, RDN. Don’t forget to ask us for a $25 gift certificate for trying dietary services with Nanette the first time for patients who have insurance coverage!

Feel free to click on the categories and keywords below to find more content as we add more to the website!

Embracing Our New Role as Physicians: COVID-19 Vaccine Myth-Busters

July 2nd, 2021

By Dr. Scot Goldberg, MD

We recently shared an article on Facebook from the American Medical Association about the new and vital role that we physicians have had to take on with the Covid-19 pandemic:  Covid vaccine myth-busters.  We really don’t mind taking on this role since it’s part of our responsibility to explain many matters of health and medicine, and the Covid-19 is an important one.  Now, hopefully as the pandemic draws to a “close” (threats from the new variants notwithstanding) this will be one of the last if not the last article I’ll need to write about it.  But as close as we are to the finish line, we could still use that final push and that’s some cushion towards herd immunity with more vaccinations.

Vaccine Myth-Busters

Being COVID-19 Vaccine Myth-Busters

Being a myth-buster hasn’t been easy.  Misinformation online has caused some people to dig in and buy in to some prevalent falsehoods out there and certainly the stress of the pandemic has fueled the intense emotions people feel towards this topic.  We understand this!  We understand and respect that people have different viewpoints on many things.  We don’t begrudge people who have struggled with this out of fear and frustration.

When people question the safety of the vaccines we have always encouraged these folks to call on us if they want to discuss or need our help.  My point here is we just want to address the fact that we take this seriously, and we’re aware that we often act as a sounding board.  We’re supposed to be the professionals here and that’s what we intend to do – be professional and stick to the science like we’ve been trained to do.  We don’t pretend to know everything.  No one knows everything.  But we do know a lot, and we’re passionate about treating people and helping people with their health.

I’d also like to say that if you genuinely have concerns about the vaccine and you’ve held off on getting it as a result that’s OKAY.  Please call us and tell us about your concerns.  We will share everything we can to help you make an informed decision.  We can’t force you to get the vaccine.  But we embrace being COVID-19 vaccine myth-busters.  We can answer your questions objectively with science, knowledge and experience.

And who knows…. you just might hit the jackpot if you get the vaccine…

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South Macomb Internal Medicine

28401 Hoover Rd.  Warren, Michigan 48093

Phone: (586) 276-7530

South Macomb Internal Medicine has been designated a Patient Centered Medical Home by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/SMIMdoc for updates, articles and fun!

Call us and ask to be added to our email newsletter that comes out every couple weeks!

Telehealth and virtual appointments are still available.

Nutritional services are also available with Nanette Cameron, RDN. Don’t forget to ask us for a $25 gift certificate for trying dietary services with Nanette the first time for patients who have insurance coverage!

Feel free to click on the categories and keywords below to find more content as we add more to the website!

 

Food Safety, The Perfect Picnic Salad & Updating Your BBQ Traditions!

June 12th, 2021

By Nanette Cameron, RDN

Food Safety

 

Picture this for a dose of wonderful nostalgia:

A nice summer day, the grill is fired up, the friends arrive with a couple dishes to pass like potato salad (yum), and a nice big seven layer dip with some deviled eggs!  The sun is out, the pool is refreshing, music is playing, the drinks are flowing…  And the hot dogs have just come off the grill with just the slightest bit of char, and the burgers are dripping with melted cheese.  Delicious!

What a day.  A couple hours go by and you notice that there is still food left.  You’re going in for seconds.  The beer is on ice but the potato salad has been baking on the table in the hot sun next to the few remaining deviled eggs.  You grab another dog, put some potato salad on your plate and you’re pretty sure no one is looking so you just pop another deviled egg while standing by the food so you don’t get in trouble.  Hot dogs, burgers with a side of food poisoning from food borne illness makes for a great night of elevated cholesterol and indigestion with antacids for dessert – right?  Well actually the dessert was the pie and the cake that you ALWAYS have room for.  At 2 AM you’re swearing you’ll never do this again (until the next invitation).

If you are still doing this – you don’t even have to admit out loud that you are – it’s time to make some changes because this routine is absolutely dangerous short term AND long term and easily avoidable.  Long term because we know this is not a sustainable way to eat without consequences to your health such as high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.   Short term because food borne illness is very real and food safety is not practiced nearly enough.

Food Safety – 3 things you need to know:

Temperature: Danger zones are between 40 and 140 degrees.  A nice 80 degree day turns your potato salad into a petri dish – you need to keep cold food below 40 and heat hot food to above 140 to avoid food poisoning.

Time: Bacteria can start to grow on food within 2 hours.  Don’t keep food sitting out that long.

Fully cooked:  So important to cook meats properly – chicken, pork and ground beef in particular should be cooked thoroughly – above 165 degrees for all three, and you can even use a thermometer to confirm they are cooked all the way through.

 

Time to update your old school BBQ traditions for the 21st century and the post-pandemic age now that we’re gathering together again.  And since some time has passed since your old routine for these things, now is the perfect time to start anew with some fresh new habits.

Here are a couple of ways to do it:

Here are some tips for a healthy cookout at EatRight.org – take a minute to read this.  And here is my go-to salad that I make and bring with me when I’m invited to one!

PERFECT PICNIC SALAD

Makes 4 servings

1 Cup red grapes sliced in half

1 can (15 ounces) small white beans, drained

½ cup diced celery

¼ cup minced green onion, thoroughly washed before chopping

2 Tbsp. Chopped fresh parsley

Lemon mustard dressing

Lettuce leaves

Lemon Mustard dressing

Combine:

2 Tbsp. Canola oil or Olive oil

2 Tbsp. Lemon juice

1 tsp. Dijon mustard

¼ tsp. Salt 

¼ tsp. Pepper

Combine all ingredients except lettuce and dressing.  Mix well.  Add dressing and toss.  Serve over bed of lettuce.

Nutrition per serving:

Calories

248

Protein

10 g

Fat 

8 g

Carbohydrates

37 g

Fiber

9 g

Sodium

170 mg

I hope you start on your path to a healthy summer with friends and family!

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South Macomb Internal Medicine

28401 Hoover Rd.  Warren, Michigan 48093

Phone: (586) 276-7530

South Macomb Internal Medicine has been designated a Patient Centered Medical Home by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.

Join us on Facebook at facebook.com/SMIMdoc for updates, articles and fun!

Call us and ask to be added to our email newsletter that comes out every couple weeks!

Telehealth and virtual appointments are still available.

Nutritional services are also available with Nanette Cameron, RDN. Don’t forget to ask us for a $25 gift certificate for trying dietary services with Nanette the first time for patients who have insurance coverage!

Feel free to click on the categories and keywords below to find more content as we add more to the website!