Family doctors played the key role in serving consumers health care needs. They knew you personally and often knew more than one generation of your family members. You could trust them to guide you through whatever health problem came at you.
Today, doctors are employees under pressure to see increasing amounts of patients. They are burdened with complex software and administrative tasks and spending much less time healing. The average doctor’s visit lasts 7 minutes. Primary care physicians are being replaced by higher earning specialists.
It is important that you find someone who can fill that much needed guide role and develop a long-term relationship with them. It is too late when you experience a health problem. Finding a personal physician or other lead healthcare practitioner today is difficult and time consuming. Yet it is something you should do for the sake of yourself and your family.
One option is to rely on CareMoat as your go-to relationship for health and health care. We fill the gaps by working with physicians and health care providers ensuring you have someone that gives personal attention and concern and guides and supports you and your family. This is a critical need in one of the most important areas of your life.
Doctors Are Employees
In 2018, 47.4% of practicing physicians were employees, while 45.9% owned their practices. The new ownership figures are a milestone, marking the first time the number of employed physicians is greater than the number of those who own practices. Less than 15% of physicians are in solo practice, down from 18.4% in 2012
26.7% of physicians in 2018 reported working in a practice that had at least some hospital ownership. Of those physicians that have some ownership, many are in giant physician firms. 15% of physicians are in practices with 50 or more physicians, up from 12.2% in 2012.
Family doctors are disappearing
Advanced countries around the world with higher-performing health care systems have built their systems on a solid base of primary, generalist care, readily available to patients for common health care problems where they live.
Most advanced countries have at least 50 percent of their physicians as generalists at the foundation of their health care systems. While the U.S. had such a base, that number has declined over the last 60 years to less than 30 percent. And that number is dropping fast.
Less than one in five U.S. medical graduates are now entering a primary care specialty, while most opt for better-paying, more attractive lifestyles of other specialties. (Pear, R. Doctor shortage proves obstacle to Obama goals. New York Times, April 27, 2010: A1)
There is a Need for the Role Family Doctors Had Historically
Research in recent years concludes that the nation’s over reliance on specialty services at the expense of primary care leads to a health care system that is less efficient. At the same time, research shows that preventive care, care coordination for the chronically ill, and continuity of care—all hallmarks of primary care medicine—can achieve better health outcomes and cost savings.
Despite these findings, the nation’s current financing mechanisms result in an atomized and uncoordinated system of care that rewards expensive procedure-based services while undervaluing primary care services.”
We at CareMoat would be honored to help you and be part of your solution.
References
https://www.ama-assn.org/about/research/employed-physicians-now-exceed-those-who-own-their-practices
(GAO. Primary Care Professionals: Recent Supply Trends, Projections and Valuation of Services. Washington, D.C. GAO-08-4721. Government Accounting Office, February 2008, p 15)
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