Newsweek also reported a recent Consumer Reports survey showing 70% of doctors say that their bond with patients has eroded since they began practicing medicine. And waiting unnecessarily stresses both patients and doctors.Īnd less time with a doctor means less opportunity for a bond to develop between patients and doctors. Long waiting times discourage people from seeing a doctor when they need to. In a recent survey, most doctors said they didn't have enough time to spend with patients. Clinics that treat mostly poor patients covered by state Medicaid plans assign their doctors up to 3,000 patients. are responsible for the care of about 2,300 patients on average. Newsweek quoted experts who warn that primary-care doctors can only provide quality care when the total number of patients who rely on them for primary care doesn’t exceed 1,800. While surgeons and specialists can boost earnings by charging for procedures, the only way, under insurance, for a primary-care doctor to increase their earnings is to run through more appointments in a day and get more patients in their practices.Īnd as volume rises, quality suffers. Not so in primary care, due to the payment model. Usually when demand increases faster than supply, prices rise. At the same time, primary care doctors are retiring while medical students choose specialties over primary care because they are more lucrative, reducing supply. An aging population, greater access to health insurance, and insurance plans that mandate seeing a primary care physician prior to a specialist have skyrocketed demand for primary care. The long waits result from simple supply and demand. And it’s only getting worse as physicians take on more patients. Other studies put the average wait time at 24 minutes. While the average person spends 21 minutes in a doctor’s waiting room, 65% of people polled by Angie’s List said they’ve waited more than an hour to see their care provider. Waits of six days or more for an appointment to see a doctor were reported by 26% of patients. The ratio of waiting to see a doctor versus spending time with a doctor is out of whack.
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