The Quality Police are after us this year because of hospital readmissions, mainly of people who never saw their primary care doctor before going back to the hospital. Some patient education in the office would help with some of these, especially if you don't hospitalize your own patients. One small step would be to let patients and office staff know that most hospital stays require short-term followup, and that "Dr. Feelgood's next opening is 8 weeks from now" isn't good enough. Along with the little info sheet explaining why you use hospitalists, how about a line at the bottom emphasizing the need to tell the appointments secretary when they've just been released from the Temple to Hygeia? And making sure the secretaries tell them to bring all their papers to their urgent-care appointment? They can even fill out a records request in the waiting room and save you some time. (And if a hospitalist has the sense and consideration to send you a discharge summary, call the patient if s/he hasn't made an appointment yet.)
Hospital docs are starting to realize that "See PCP in 2 weeks" isn't enough. We hospitalists can push them out; we need PCP's to pull them in as well.
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