Even in the current American healthcare system, individuals with a primary care provider receive more value in their management. But today, one fourth of us don’t have a primary care physician and it is going to get worse. Our population is growing and aging. Older Americans require much more healthcare service. In just ten years, we may have a shortage of 50,000 primary care providers in the country. Forty percent of currently active physicians will be over 65 in ten years. More Americans have trouble finding a doctor even now. There is a Great Resignation in medicine too. Twenty percent of the current physician workforce says they will leave their current practice within two years. One third say they will cut back on their hours of patient care.
There are many reasons for primary care dissatisfaction and burnout. While most primary care doctors work for big hospital systems, most have no “departments of primary care, no administrators that speak for primary care, no primary care leadership. It has little prestige compared to the specialties.”
Payment policies of insurance companies force primary care doctors to see more patients just to maintain their current levels of income, which are very low compared to specialists. They are on a hamster wheel, driven by the tyranny of the urgent. They are spending too little time with patients and too much time on paperwork and computers. They are overworked and dissatisfied. Many are burned out. The number of medical students in 2019 who selected primary care as a specialty was the lowest on record and that trend is likely to continue. Primary care physicians are paid less than specialists and many medical students have six figure debt from their education. Primary care just isn’t an option for them. Just when needs are greatest, supply is the most limited. Nurse practitioners can provide primary care independently in over half of the states. Communities with poor primary care access should help them get set up.
A clear concise summary of our current culture of medical practice.
I really am. I began with this doctor from the beginning of her practice 24 years ago.