Posted on 11/15/2012 12:55:40 AM PST by CutePuppy
The United States will require at least 52,000 more family doctors in the year 2025 to keep up with the growing and increasingly older U.S. population, a new study found.
The predictions also reflect the passage of the Affordable Care Act — a change that will expand health insurance coverage to an additional 38 million Americans.
"The health care consumer that values the relationship with a personal physician, particularly in areas already struggling with access to primary care physicians should be aware of potential access challenges that they may face in the future if the production of primary care physicians does not increase," said Dr. Andrew Bazemore, director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Primary Care and co-author of the study published Monday in the Annals of Family Medicine.
Stephen Petterson, senior health policy researcher at the Robert Graham Center, said the government should take steps — and quickly — to address the problem before it gets out of hand.
"There needs to be more primary care incentive programs that give a bonus to physicians who treat Medicaid patients in effort to reduce the compensation gap between specialists and primary care physicians," said Petterson, who co-authored the study with Bazemore.
< snip >
Green added that he believes this is because currently primary care specialties are not well paid, well treated or respected as compared to subspecialists.
< snip >
Perhaps the best known example of this approach has been Massachusetts, which since 2006 has mandated that every resident obtain health insurance and those that are below the federal poverty level gain free access to health care. But although the state has the second-highest ratio of primary care physicians to population of any state, they are struggling with access to primary care physicians.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I would think the best choice is to hustle up doctors from Cuba (they produce statistically more doctors than any nation on the face of the Earth). We develop friendly relations with those Cuba folks...which ought to be a priority with the Obama administration, and makes all the Latinos happy in the end.
This is all very logical from the Dem Ideologue’s point of view.
1. There are too many people on Gaia, (Earth), using up the resources.
2. American are the most resource abusing people.
3. We must stop them from using to many resources for Gaia’s sake.
Solution: Make as many of them die as possible.
2nd Solution: Make the method a law and the Sheeple will follow it especially if it takes years to do so.
Problem: If we do it overtly they Sheeple will fight back and stop us from achieving our goals.
And now we have Obamacare, Gaia will be saved.
That's exactly right. "Health care reform" -- whether in Massachusetts through Romneycare or in the U.S. under Obamacare -- was never about providing more health care to people. It was about forcing people to buy insurance whether they wanted to or not. That's why the insurance industry basically wrote Obamacare ... because a system where coverage is mandated while access is limited is an insurance company's dream.
My GP says he’ll retire in the next year and he’s only in his mid-50’s. As far as doctor crunch...already here in our area due to much older population (I’m assuming.) Takes me 6 weeks to get an appt. with my GP. If it’s something that is urgent, you either take an appt. with the Nurse Practitioner or go to the walk-in.
Took me 6 months to get an appt. with a neurologist who specializes in my disease (he was specialist who was based at the University.) Now he headed for the hills, resigned and took a job with a big name pharmaceutical.
And the most recent doctor shortage (in neurologists and other health care providers) in our area comes from a large health care conglomerate that can’t come to an agreement with our insurance company (United). This health care conglomerate has several hospitals and a large portion of doctors in their organization (about 70% of neurologists in our area, it is estimated they include 34% of all health care facilities and providers.) So if they (the insurance and the health care conglomerate don’t come to an agreement within a couple weeks...it’s going to be bad news for lots of patients.) Crunch time at other hospitals and providers that will accept the plan.
Kill off the old white people that vote Republican so the young brown people that vote Democrat can survive til the next election.
Nice Op-Ed. I’d like to pass it on if you will.
You forgot to add the debt, accumulated as you "work your arse off."
Thanks to socialized medicine, there will be far fewer doctors in future, and an explosion of patients getting in on all that subsidized healthcare.
You mean, as in higher demand and lower supply? What do they call it in economics?
Healthcare in the US id officially f*cked.
I think that's the idea and the correct answer to the above question.
“Doctors will be replaced by computers. You enter your symptoms and the computer spits out a prescription.”
Actually, I trust that more than an Affirmative Action trained doctor. My sister diagnosed our mom’s deadly disease via Google after her A.A. doctor told her she was “just getting old” and sent her packing. Sister saved her life; doctor didn’t want to be bothered.
[IBM's] Watson is almost there. All we need is enough "dumb" terminals and we're all set for health care Utopia.
OR it is working just as designed. It is not about heaqlthcare. It is about power and control. The country is moving toward the classic model of a ruling party elite who will have immediate access to the best health care and the rest of the fine life and a downtrodden mass of serfs who will wait in long lines and must conform to every diktat of the Regime or be consigned to even less care and a path to gradual death.
“solve”???
you mean the system we have, doctors, medicine, and hospitals... costs too much... so the solution is... to add 1m federal employees to oversee aforementioned system??
LOL
NO ONE actually believes it’ll get cheaper. NO ONE.
meanwhile, not a single political type has suggested... even once... to promote education / creation of more medical types
econ101: price too high? increase supply
* Build many hospitals or urban outreach buildings. They will be filthy, just like in Mother Russia.
* Staff with poorly trained doctors or physicians assistants or some new title they invent.
We are FUBAR'd....
The key to “selling” socialized care is the allure of “universal coverage”..... Meaning everybody has a “ health care policy” into which they pay monthly.
Basically another Social Security and Medicare style payroll deduction is considered ideal by the fascists/proto-fascists that now run this country.
The “key” to making it all work however, is having NO access to the system....which is best accomplished by having NO primary care docs.
This is only means by which the monthly payroll deduction can be retained for the play and use of the fascists. They consider the actual health care of those from whom they take the money “a waste of a good opportunity”
Anybody else remember that, or was it a dream?
About 20 years ago, there was an absolute cap placed on the number of Medicare-funded resident training positions in US hospitals. Since the number of residency positions was historically greater than the number of US medical school graduates, the difference was made up by foreign medical school graduates in the past. The number of US medical school graduates has been increasing since then, so the number of residency positions that are offered to foreign medical school graduates (and that are necessary to complete before the doctor can be licensed) is getting very small.
I think the statistic is that about 1/3 of US physicians are age 55 or above and so have already retired, are going to retire, are cutting back their hours, or at least aren't going to be expanding their practices.
I'm pretty sure that I've posted remarks about the physician supply problem since the Obamacare debate began (as have many others). Since it took 20 years for the gov't to create the problem, at best it would take them 20 years to undo the problem. (Think "Veterans Administration", "Post Office" and "FEMA"!)
But first, they must understand that there is a problem, which they don't. "Physician extenders" -- Nurse Practitioners and Physician's Assistants -- have been used for years, but the educational requirements are much less rigorous, and IMO the quality just isn't there.
My only advice is, "don't get sick". The only people who will do well under Obamacare are malpractice lawyers.
I’ve already lost my doctor to the Obamacare rules. My doctor owned a chain of about a dozen clinics, and being a physician, he also practiced in one of his clinics. Obamacare says that a doctor cannot own and operate a hospital or healthcare facility and practice in that place. My doc had a choice, stop being a doctor or give up his business. He chose to stop practicing medicine and just manage his chain of clinics. I had to find another doctor and now I’ve lost out by having a doctor who I’ve only seen twice versus one I’ve known for the past twenty years.
“Doctors are disappearing faster than fried chicken at an Obamaphone convention. . .”
I worked in the health care industry and they can’t get out fast enough.
Didn't you read the bill?
"A major victory for nursing occurred with the designation of nurse-managed health clinics as eligible for federal funding in addition to a $50 million grant through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Nurse-managed health clinics will help train more nurses in primary and preventive care while strengthening the nation's healthcare safety net. The nurse practitioners who staff nurse-managed health clinics are by far the nation's fastest growing segment of primary care providers. Offering cost-effective, high-quality care to patients regardless of their ability to pay, these clinics are perfectly positioned to fill the provider gap that has been well documented by the shortage of primary care physicians."
Obamacare was a poisoned pill from the beginning. It was designed to fail, a feature not a bug. In a couple of years the sheeple will beg for single payer, the ultimate socialist nirvana....
The solution to the non problem is obvious.
Low Pay for a docter in America is better than No Pay in India or the Philippines
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