I was sent this article by my friend Dr. Jeff Gold who is from Massachusetts. It is behind a paywall but I embedded the video from them above. Here are some highlights and a few salient quotes from the print edition:

• Noble quit private practice within a year, unwilling to rush through the 18 patients a day her group required. Noble joined an exodus of primary care physicians weary of administrative tasks mandated by insurance companies and the seemingly endless data entry required by electronic medical records, all while receiving lower salaries compared with physicians in other specialties. To make matters worse, the pipeline of newly trained primary care doctors is too thin to meet the growing need.
• “To choose a profession where you’re going to work harder and make less is not enticing,” Spivak said.
• “I could spend 20 to 30 minutes talking about really serious stuff — congestive heart failure, atrial fibrillation, diabetes. . . . I might get $125,” Noble said. “If I brought someone in and burned off three warts with liquid nitrogen, which would take maybe 10 minutes, I would get paid $180.”
• At Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, 1,600 adults are waiting for appointments — the first time the center has ever had a waiting list, chief executive Susan G. Joss said.
• Other community health centers have it worse: 6,300 are waiting at Lynn Community Health Center and 8,000 at the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, according to the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers. And Charles River Community Health has temporarily stopped accepting new adult patients, the league said.
• State officials say the initiative involves infusing an additional $115 million into primary care each year, for MassHealth patients. On top of that, starting this year, certain practices received 25 percent to 35 percent increases in MassHealth payments.

So, to summarize:

1. Mass is hemorrhaging doctors
2. Patients can’t find one to see
3. The system is broken as it pays family docs the least
4. Patients are on long waiting lists to see someone even if they have a doctor
5. The state is pumping over a hundred million each year and it does nothing to help

What did the article fail to mention? Direct Primary Care. Why? Because they don’t see it as an answer. That’s weird because doctors love DPC when they transition into it. The patients love it as well. It saves a ton of money. And patients don’t have to wait to see their docs! You would think it would interest the Boston Glove. Nope.

Here are my thoughts. How about Mass take that $115 million each year and invest it in doctors who want to start their own DPC practice? It could be a grant or a no-interest loan and the doctor could guarantee to see 10% of their needy patients for free. Or, have Medicaid create medical EBT cards with a monthly amount that can be ONLY used for DPC?

Or don’t and watch this thing crumble. Oh, wait, it is already happening before our eyes.