March 2008

Expanding your role

The medical assisting profession continues to gain recognition as physicians increasingly value the role medical assistants play, even to the point of finding ways to expand their roles.

One such physician, Thomas Bodenheimer, MD, department of family and community medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Calif., and coauthor Brian Yoshio Laing, BS, introduce a compelling new approach to care in their article published in Annals of Family Medicine (5:457-461; 2007). In "The Teamlet Model of Primary Care," the authors explain how a medical assistant can function as a "health coach" and, along with another health coach and the physician, form a teamlet that acts to extend the 15-minute physician visit. The patient visit is extended by dividing the encounter into four parts: a previsit by the coach, a visit by the clinician together with the coach, a postvisit by the coach, and between-visit care by the coach.

Find out more by reading the full article, "The Teamlet Model of Primary Care," at the Annals of Family Medicine website.

It's in the mail...

Keep your eye out for the following documents that are in the mail to state presidents and presidents elect.

AAMA Board of Trustees highlights. Feel free to publish the highlights on your website or in your newsletter.

Important forms to complete and send to AAMA

• State delegates and alternates
• State officer
• Dues verification
• House of Delegates Committee volunteers
• AAMA Board of Trustee nominations
• 2008 Excel Awards Competition entries
• 2008 AAMA Annual Conference program advertising
  
  

BOT on the move

Last destination Albuquerque, next destination Cincinnati! The Board of Trustees travels across the country in an effort to give more members a chance to attend the meetings and offer input on the issues facing the association and the profession.

Join us this summer for the Board of Trustees and Endowment meetings:

Cincinnati, Ohio, Garfield Suites Hotel, June 6-7, 2008