Question for the OT nurses and docs - smoker?

Let’s them know that if you smoke, you poke

It's a key and important question. Smoking dramatically increases your health risk for all sorts of problems both major and minor. In short, to your doctor it is an essential piece of information.

It's part of your social/medical history. They'll also ask you if anyone in your family has a history of cancer, which isn't related to a broken arm either, but is still important information for your overall health.

Also, it helps in research purposes.

"Meaningful Use". It was a set of standards the govt used to "encourage" physician offices to implement and utilize EMR's. One of the measurements they used to determine if you received incentive money was if you were collecting certain social health measures. Nicotine, alcohol, drugs, etc.. It's also when you started being asked about your race and ethnicity at the doctor.

Before meaningful use, doctor's offices asked you what they believed was relevant to your care for their specialty. After, they asked you questions based on what data the government wanted to collect. Oh, and if we didn't implement, you would receive annual decreases in Medicare/Medicaid payments.

TLDR: Govt paid doctors to include the question in their EMR templates.

Just wait until they start asking you if you have a gun in the house.

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If you are in for a broken arm, what the hell difference does it make if the patient smokes?

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Makes it harder to smoke with a broke arm.

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not a smoker but curious why it is that for every first visit for any doctor part of the questioning is always "are you a smoker, have you ever smoked". If you are in for a broken arm, what the hell difference does it make if the patient smokes? Does this change the way you treat or is it just to gather statistics??

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never was a smoker except for left handed roll your own while in Nam, however, my physical for employment with a major oil co (that Chevron bought) back in 1969 the Dr. asking me questions about my health had a Lucky Strike hanging out of his mouth. This was in Houma.

The main reason for this is $$$. When electronic medical records(emrs) were newish, the government was giving a lot of money to doctors who used emrs if they proved meaningful use. One of the criteria to meet meaningful use was asking pertinent social history questions like tobacco and alcohol use.

I remember I broke my wrist & went to after hours. I was in significant pain and was asked that question & I sorta got pissed and said "does it matter?" I actually did smoke at the time too ftr.