The toolkit from AAFP - 150 forms and counting

The American Academy of Family Physicians, through Family Practice Management magazine, have added another 10 tools to the toolkit they maintain on their website. This toolkit currently contains about 150 items that you can download and use or adapt as you need. It's an excellent resource for all practices:

https://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/journals/fpm/fpmtoolbox.html

The AAFP site is a rich source of material for practices. Don Self, a Texas based consultant, has a diverse set of resources that he has collected from billing managers and practice managers over the years. Don's sense of humor can be a bit odd, but the resources are good. I've adapted some of these for use with clients.If you haven't done this in a while, 2007 would be a good time to start a complete review of the forms used in your practice. My particular pet peeve are the forms that are copies of copies and look fuzzy, slanted and generally sloppy. Even worse are the forms provided by some drug company, complete with the name of some drug imprinted all over it. (The absolute best was a neurologist who had exam table paper from some drug company.)

Do you need the form? Does it ask the right questions and collect the needed information? Is the form easy to use - are instructions clear, and is the font large enough to be easily read (at least 12 point, maybe slightly larger)?

This is also a review that should involve your line staff who work with the forms and patients every day. From there, you can develop recommendations for all forms - what to keep, what to discard, and what to revise. All forms should have a notation on the bottom, in very small type, noting the date of the revision for future reference.