The current system of Medicare, Medicaid, VA Care, Medicare driving big insurance companies is a major factor.
Micro-specialization is a factor. We can’t just have a cancer doctor or family doctor....we now must have a specialist for each type of cancer and each sex and age group of family member.
The American belief that bigger is better is a major factor.
The ego of billionaires who donate to build new gigantic hospitals to their ego is a big factor.
Educated employees don’t want to live in rural America is a major factor.
But, above all, the way the medical community is regulated by the government is the single biggest factor.
The result is that we are building a system where the sole function of rural health providers is to be feeder-nodes to feed the large urban medical center.
When a patient is treated at the rural sender site and then again at the big urban center, the system can double bill for the same treatment.
That is even true internal to urban centers. A Hospital chain not only has rural hospitals feeding its urban giants, that hospital chain is buying up private practices and opening “urgent care centers” just blocks from those giant hospitals. What is the role of these new urgent care centers? To feed patients to the giant hospitals.
Good luck fixing it.
Spot on.
To take some of the pressure off the hospitals and doctors.
My wife was throwing up a few years ago and we were not sure if it was something serious or not. We went to an urgent care place so as not to take up a doctor or emergency room's time needlessly. Turned out it was her appendix, but if it had been just the flu, we would have made the emergency room more crowded for no reason.