Doug Cutler, MD, FHM, and Diplomat American Board of Integrative and Holistic Medicine is currently a practicing hospitalist at Dignity Health YRMC Medical Center, Prescott AZ, serving in this capacity for six years. Previous positions held by Dr. Cutler include Chief of Internal Medicine, Regional Director of a large national Hospitalist Company, Physician Advisor, Medical Director of Care Coordination, Medical Director of a fully integrated multi-state Health System, staff hospitalist at various hospitals in the Southwest, and consultant Physician Advisor to a large health system that was building a strong Physician Advisor program from the ground up.

Dr. Cutler’s philosophy in medicine is “Work Smarter, Not Harder” as relates to the important physician role of documentation and communication of patient care in the electronic health record. The medical record first and foremost, the medical record is a communication tool that patient’s fellow physicians and allied healthcare stakeholders depend upon to deliver and provide the quality focused, patient centered, fully informed, outcomes based, cost effective care. A byproduct of solid and complete physician documentation is optimal net patient revenue less prone to financial and compliance risk.

Dr. Cutler has worked with physicians one-one-one as well as in groups educating and sharing best practice standards and principles of documentation that adequately captures their clinical judgment, medical decision making and thought processes in putting forth an assessment and plan accompanied by a clear and concise patient story utilized in level of care determination by the physician and Case Management/Utilization Review. Dr. Cutler collaborates with Case Managers and Utilization Review disciplines to break down silos that may exist in an organization, building a strong partnership between the two in driving achievement of clinical documentation excellence that withstands third party payer scrutiny and second guessing of physician’s clinical judgment and medical decision making in level of care decisions and need for continued hospital stay.

Lastly, Dr. Cutler teaches and educates physicians on the duties and responsibilities to capture clinical rationale and thought processes in the capture of all relevant diagnoses with inclusion of clinical specificity in documentation of diagnoses. Better Documentation equates to better Quality of Care.