Joan and I got married on September 15th, 2001. I was still a newish family medicine resident and was rounding in a hospital on the morning of 9/11.
Steven Frenz; Dan McCarrell, Jr.; David Frenz; Matt Bergerson; Ashley Brandt | Photo Credit: Joe Treleven
Jamie Santilli, our attending physician, told the residents to take some time to process what was occurring. I remember her tremendous humanitarianism when the anniversary of 9/11 rolls around each year.
Our wedding and surrounding events happened as scheduled. Tom Johnson, a retired pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, officiated. Sara Renner made wonderful music. We were missing a bridesmaid and a few guests — but many converted cancelled flights into roadtrips to Minneapolis.
We honeymooned in Ely instead of Italy. Joan’s Jetta, ever trouble, dropped its muffler on our drive north. We burned some wedding cash at a repair shop as we passed through Duluth.
I still have my wedding coat and tie and wear them a few times a year — generally to weddings! ✸
And direct our spirits he did! Father Steve shared the following passage from Thomas Wolfe, which is a great meditation for the week:
To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth—
—Whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, toward which the conscience of the world is tending—a wind is rising, and the rivers flow.
Father Steve is now semi-retired and splits his time between Minnesota and Florida. ✸
Meditation is my medication. I added Muse, the brain-sensing headband, to my meditation practice in July. I hit the 1,000,000 mark yesterday for “calm points.”
“Thanks a Million” is the alternate title for this post—as in, many thanks to InteraXon, the company that developed Muse and brought it to market. My quality of life so much better because of it.
Downtown Minneapolis is bleak right now. The towers have been empty since the shelter-in-place order was issued last winter. Many buildings are boarded up due to property damage from rioting. Sirens are constantly going off because of the sharp increase in crime. Street vagrancy is prevalent outside of my office building.
The world is upside down, however, this abandoned church reminds me every morning to continue healing the sick. ✸
Stress, anxiety, depression and substance use have increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. This has a lot people thinking about better self-care.
I’m helping one of my employers with a four-week “meditation challenge.” It grew out of a recent lunch and learn for employees that included some material on mindfulness. The more the merrier, so I’m sharing this with my entire social network.
Here’s the challenge: Meditate three times per day, generally in the morning when you wake up; sometime in the afternoon; and again in the evening right before you go to bed. Start with 5-minute sessions, increasing the duration week-by-week as follows:
Week 1: 5 minutes, 3 times per day
Week 2: 10 minutes, 3 times per day
Week 3: 15 minutes, 3 times per day
Week 4: 20 minutes, 3 times per day
In terms of technique:
Assume any comfortable position. I personally like a semi-supine position (see below)
Set a timer (e.g., on your phone) with a soft alarm
Close your eyes
Direct your attention to your breath. This might be your nose, chest or belly
Follow your breath in and out. Some people use simple mental mantras for each in-breath and out-breath. Examples are: in-out, deep-slow and calm-ease
Internal and external distractions will occur. Just let thoughts, emotions and sensations pass without judgment. Return to your breath, using a mantra, if needed. On the flip side, don’t worry if you feel sleepy or even doze off. Allow that to pass without judgment, too.
And that’s it!
Please let me know how you feel during and after the challenge.
— I’ve greatly benefited from Alexander Technique lessons. One tip/trick is something called constructive rest, which involves the semi-supine position depicted below.
1. Head slightly supported by a softcover book (or two) 2. Arms slightly away from body (abducted), palms down (pronated) 3. Shoes off; feet about hip-width apart — Photo: Ayden Frenz
I’m also a fan of Muse, the brain-sensing headband, but that’s a post for another day. ✸
I’ve been closely following media reports about Zoom security — for example, unauthorized people “zoombombing” (infiltrating) meetings. Although some of the identified security concerns are real, experts note that Zoom has been responsive and rapidly implemented fixes. And I have yet to see a story specific to Zoom for Healthcare, the paid, HIPAA-compliant plan. At this point, I don’t think that we need to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater
According to David Nield at Wired, “[T]here are plenty of settings you can tweak to make Zoom a safer place for you and everyone else on the line.” Kate O’Flaherty, a cybersecurity journalist with Forbes, Nicole Nguyen at the Wall Street Journal, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) all outline the same basic precautions
Zoom hosts should:
Allow Zoom to generate random Meeting IDs. Don’t use your Personal Meeting ID
Protect Meeting IDs. Don’t post them publicly
Allow Zoom to generate random passwords for each Meeting
Share passwords securely with invitees
Restrict screen sharing
Enable Waiting Room. This allows you to manage who enters your Meetings
Lock Meetings after everyone has entered. This prevents additional people from joining
The following screenshots demonstrate these settings and features (orange rectangles). Some of these are already default settings, but please verify that everything is in order in your Zoom dashboard
Personal Meeting ID (PMI) toggled offRandom password generator toggled onRestrict screen sharing to hostWaiting room toggled on for all participantsLock meeting after everyone has entered (“More” menu). You need to do this manually during each meeting
I’ve been doing telehealth for a few years. Now everyone wants in due to the coronavirus pandemic. My partner, John Sutherland, Ph.D., and I have been furiously spinning up mental health and addiction clinicians at Allina Health. We transitioned at least 75 providers this week and more will soon follow.
This post will provide some practical advice for those new to telehealth. It comes straight from the trainings that John and I have delivered in recent days.
Keep it Simple I use a number of telehealth platforms including Vidyo, Epic Warp Drive and Zoom for Healthcare. I recommend Zoom for Healthcare if you need to get up fast and don’t have an IT department supporting you. It’s literally purchase and practice. Patients just need the Zoom app, which is device and operating system agnostic (and free!). Make sure you get a Business Associate Agreement to achieve HIPAA compliance (although a safe harbor [waiver] exists during the current public health emergency).
Be Professional I remind providers that they are health professionals, not creepy basement YouTubers. The following are small touches that make a big difference
Use good lighting. Cheap solutions are readily available on Amazon
Place your camera at eye level. Options include putting your laptop on a few reams of paper
Use a headset microphone. I like Sennheiser gaming headsets with noise-cancelling microphones
Select a bland background. If none is readily available, blow in a virtual background
Minimize environmental distractions. Under the current circumstances, that might include your kids and dog
Look into your camera often. That’s where your patient is, not elsewhere on your screen (even if that’s where they appear to be)
Documentation Payment for telehealth requires that certain elements appear in your visit documentation. The following is the header of my charting templates, where *** are elements that are populated for each encounter
Date of Service: ***
Start Time: ***
End Time: ***
Type of Service: Evaluation and management (E/M)
Type of Encounter: Telehealth [or: Virtual health]
Mode of Transmission: Secure, synchronous, real-time audio and video communication via Vidyo
Originating Site: *** [patient location — city and state]
Distant Site: Minneapolis, Minn.
Basis for Service: Virtual health, in my judgment, is an appropriate and effective means for providing this service secondary to the current COVID-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing. I have previously seen the patient for traditional in-office care and consider their mental status, including the absence of imminent danger, amenable to virtual care
In one of my lives (I have a few), I serve as the medical director for a commercial health plan. My duties involve developing policies and reviewing claims. It’s the greatest job on earth if you love evidence-based medicine (which I do!). And it connects perfectly to another life: teaching EBM at the University of Minnesota, which I’ve been doing since 2004.
I’m pleased to return to St. Joseph’s Hospital, my former employer and postgraduate alma mater, on August 20th to discuss health insurance with the family residents.
This post contains my key teaching points and didactic materials.
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Suggested Thought Process
Is the health care service a covered benefit? (cf. benefit plan)
Does the carrier have a policy concerning the health care service?
In the absence of a specific policy, is the health care service medically necessary?
Does the member (patient) and/or evidence meet criteria?
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Benefit Plan
At a very high level, benefits are determined by the member’s benefit plan. Eligible services are subject to the plan’s terms, as often summarized in medical policies. Excluded services are not eligible for coverage and cannot be funded by the plan (doing so would violate a contact with the plan’s owner).
I’m pleased to be partnering with Allina Health’s hospitalists on education and order set creation. The latter includes a presentation at their annual CME conference, offered on a repeating basis on April 5th, April 10th, April 26th and May 2nd.
Hospitalists frequently care for patients following overdoses and other opioid-related misadventures—trauma, endocarditis, and so on. Buprenorphine is a very nifty widget in these circumstances.
Another common scenario is acute pain management for patients who take buprenorphine in the community. Pain control is neither hard nor complicated, so long as you follow a few simple rules.
Special thanks to Drs. Saul Singh and David Beddow for their partnership on this.
