This is an article from the Boston Globe called Why you can’t get in to see your primary care doctor. ‘It’s almost frightening.’. And it’s the same old yawner. Not enough primary care doctors. No one can get in. Patients feel rushed. Doctors hate their job.
“They are leaving because it’s less enjoyable to practice with short visits where you know you’re not able to meet all the needs of your patient,” said Greiner. “And there’s a high administrative burden — studies show two hours of paperwork and reporting for one hour of clinical care. That’s not a lot of fun.”
When you have a system where primary care docs are paid the least, are overburdened as noted above, and are literally killing themselves then it is destined to fail.
But what if you had a system where primary care doctors enjoy their work? What if patients get in to see their doctors the same day without a problem? Even better, what if the patients LOVED the practice? That would be awesome, right? Well, it’s called DIRECT PRIMARY CARE and the author in this Boston Globe article doesn’t even mention it. Nada. We have a bunch of DPC docs around the Boston area she could have spoken to but she was ignorant of this or gave no effort in doing so.
What a joke.
We have an answer for you, Jessica Bartlett, but you have to listen first.