There was a recent article called The Doctor Is Out: Why Independent Physicians Are Disappearing From Vermont and it is as disturbing as the post we did about Dr. Orton. In fact, Dr. Orton is quoted in this piece as well. The premise?

• The FFS sucks
• Doctors are burned out
• Doctors are retiring
• Independent doctors are a dying breed

Here is a quote from the piece:

Lately, though, Norris no longer feels like time is on her side. Three nurse practitioners are leaving for higher-paying jobs, and Norris has only found one replacement. More troubling, her three physician colleagues expect to retire in the next few years, and she has little hope of recruiting successors with the salaries she can offer. Before long, she will be the practice’s last remaining doctor. 

“It’s not a very stable future,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Hmmm, what to do? If only I could think of something.

Here is another quote:

At Cambridge Family Practice, Norris and her colleagues take penny-pinching to a new level. Homemade curtains cover the exam room windows, obscuring views of cornstalks and a baseball field. A room for minor surgical procedures doubles as a storage closet. “We’re even counting paper clips,” quipped Dr. Deb Richter, who is one of the four docs. Still, certain expenses can’t be cut, and the cost of running the practice goes up each year.

Not once is Direct Primary Care mentioned in this piece. There are four DPC practices in Vermont according to the DPC Mapper on DPCfrontier.com.

THE ONLY HOPE FOR THESE DOCS TO SURVIVE IS DO DIRECT PRIMARY CARE!

If anyone ever read my first book I talk about those doctors with death row syndrome. I talk about those doctors who feel they are abandoning patients by doing DPC. And they truly believe this even though they are going to quit, retire, do drugs, or commit suicide because the system is so bad. Some of them will never be convinced and maybe Vermont docs are all that way. Is it possible they never heard of DPC?

If you want to feel good about what you are doing while empathizing with those stuck in a broken system then read the whole article.

TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW (I somehow missed the end of the article myself due to ads).