August 2007

Dear Colleague:

The Boston Partnership for Older Adults (BPOA) is a coalition of over 200 organizations and individuals who are dedicated to the needs of Boston's elders. The Health Committee of BPOA thanks you for joining us in our campaign to establish a new standard for quality geriatric care that may be efficiently integrated into the daily practice of non-geriatrician primary care practitioners.

To use the Functional Assessment Tool for Primary Care Physicians and the Patient Survey, we ask that when meeting with your patients sixty-five years of age and older, you use the Tool as a reference and distribute the Patient Questionnaire. We know that time is short and that your office has its particular operating procedures. We will leave it to you to decide whether the Patient Questionnaire is given to the patient in the office or mailed prior to the appointment. We also leave it to you to determine who on your staff will use the Functional Assessment Tool.

The Functional Assessment Tool provides guidelines for a comprehensive assessment of older adults. Where appropriate the ICD-9 billing codes are provided to assist you with Pay for Performance and to bill for any issues which you identified and addressed.

Also provided is the contact information for Boston ElderINFO, a community information and referral service. This number will give you access to additional resources within the community. In using the Functional Assessment Tool, you treat the entire person and in addition to medical issues, you may discover some non-medical issues which are impacting the health status of your patient.

We are available to answer any questions which may arise. Please contact: Clare Wohlgemuth at (617) 638-6141.

By using these Tools in your practice, you are supporting an improved dialogue between older patients and their doctors and will increase awareness that health equals function when considering how best to assess and treat older patients. After downloading these materials, please click on the Share Your Experience button and allow us to contact you in three months to ask about your experience of using these Tools.

Sincerely,

Emily Shea, MSW, MPH      Clare Wohlgemuth, APRN, BC

Share Your Experience

We know that using the Functional Assessment Tool and the Patient Questionnaire will enable Primary Care Physicians to:

• Increase communication between the PCP and the patient
• Assist patients to connect with community services
• Increase reimbursement

We would like to learn about your experience of using the Functional Assessment Tool and the Patient Questionnaire. Please click on the button below. We will contact you in 3 months.