Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Unhappy docs
A new survey by the Physicians' Foundation finds that half of practicing primary care physicians plan to either leave practice or reduce the number of patients they see over the next three years. Is this wishful thinking on their part about creating better work/life balance, or an indication that primary care is about to disappear? By the time health care reform is enacted, will there be anyone left to take advantage of it?
The other interesting stat from the survey is that 78% of the physicians believe there is a primary care shortage. Our question: what's up with that other 22%?
Labels: primary care shortage
posted by Stacey Butterfield at
9:45 AM
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4 Comments:
The fix is simple. Just reverse the payment schedule. Pay geriatricians and primary care MDs at the fee schedule of proceduralists and compensate them for the time spent with families and with care coordination. If a primary care MD can be compensated at the levels of Radiologist, Oncologists, Cardiologist etc. you will see a dramatic increase in the number of residents who choose internal medicine, primary care and geriatrics as a career. If not, it will not matter if there is universal health care or other improvements in the access to care; there will be no MDs left to care for them.
I am amazed by the ignorance and indifference shown by people who claim to represent doctors-including primary care doctors.The solution is very simple!! Pay primary care doctors more than specialists.Otherwise,primary care doctors will be gone and it won't matter whether we have insurance for the entire population or not.Who is going to provide primary care to extra 40 million Americans when they finally get the health insurance coverage?
Time will come when PCPs are extinct and primary care will be left to the NPs and PAs.They are good with simple things, but not with complicated medical problems.
I do not think there is a simple solution, at least not without disrupting the free market. Paying people in a manner competitive with other opportunities their talents may bring them is one solution. The VA tries to do that but they still have their share of turnover.
The ACP and other organizations dedicated to promoting the interest and continuation of primary care practice needs to seriously examine how to make the tasks that they are asking their pool of talent to fulfill more gratifying professionally.
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