When costs climb and reimbursements decline, medical practices, logically enough, start to wonder how they should think about reducing overhead. But one healthcare consultant suggests that too many practitioners don’t make enough data-informed changes.

Source: Medical Economics

A new opinion piece argues that hands-on staff such as nurses—and, by extension, medical assistants—should be more involved in the planning, decision-making, and execution of AI adoption. Failure to do so may increase burnout rates.

Source: Fierce Healthcare

Have a question for your colleagues? An insight or opinion about a pressing issue that you want to share? Get the discussions and debates going by emailing us.

Amol Saxena, DPM, MPH, and Elizabeth Bondi, DPM, MS, published “Successful treatment of nonunion after high tibial osteotomy using combined Extracorporeal Magnetotransduction Therapy (EMTT) and Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy (ESWT),” a case report in the Journal of Electronic Biology & Medicine. This is their third publication together showing improved surgical outcomes using shockwave on the lower extremity, and Saxena’s 20th on shockwave. Both are founding members of the International Society for Footwear Research & Innovation.

No-shows are not only about the appointment a patient skips, they are also shaped by the last visit. A long, frustrating wait teaches patients that their time does not matter, and that lesson makes them likelier to skip or cancel the next one. A patient who no-shows once carries a meaningfully higher risk of leaving the practice altogether.

Look for the choke points in your own flow: rooming delays, gaps between check-in and the provider, and paperwork that could be done ahead of time. Sending intake and insurance verification by text before the visit clears work off the day itself. Smoother visits are not just a satisfaction play. They protect the relationship that keeps patients coming back.

Source: Keith A. Reynolds, Physicians Practice

A projection from Research and Markets expects the market for generic drugs to reach just over $571 billion by 2031, an increase of more than 28 percent from the $445.32 billion projected for 2026.

Source: GlobeNewswire

The longer a patient waits for an appointment, the more likely they are to miss it. Life gets in the way, the reason for the visit fades, or they find care somewhere else. Long lead times are one of the quietest drivers of no-shows.

This is where open-access scheduling, sometimes called advanced access, earns its keep. By holding part of each day open for patients who need to be seen soon, you shrink the window in which a booking can fall apart. You do not need to convert the whole schedule at once. Even reserving a handful of near-term slots each day gives you somewhere to put urgent requests and cuts the number of appointments booked so far out that patients forget them.

Source: Keith A. Reynolds, Physicians Practice

Tom Biernacki, DPM, at Balance Foot & Ankle Podiatry in Brighton, Michigan, uses his LinkedIn page to promote his work and answer questions for current and potential patients, this one about who really needs custom orthotics.

Much discussion has taken place since last summer regarding revisions to the Cellular Tissue Product (CTP) policy. Changes to the policy were warranted by the rapid growth in Medicare spending from $250M in 2017 to $10B in 2024.

Editor’s Note: Part 2 of this article will run in our September issue.

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