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.
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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 ...
Medical schools? What medical schools?
Any of our illustrious investigative reporters check on enrollment lately?
No. The only few working today are stretched thin following Benghazi.
No one in their right mind would sign up for this.
100K per year to come out and deal with this at about 150K per year under Obamacare?
No takers.
We will have no doctors and no research and our pharmacuticals will be outdated
Of course, and it will go much further than that. We'll get to the point at which you'll be seeing people with 1 or 2 year degrees ‘treating’ patients. Then the media will spout ‘studies’ about how the treatment people are getting is actually as good or better than from physicians. You can bet, however, that politicians will still be seeing MDs.
“Doctors will be replaced by computers. You enter your symptoms and the computer spits out a prescription.”
Way too much biological variability and way too many holes in what we understand to be able to approach medical care with a computer algorithm. Computers can be very helpful, but ultimately, it’s really a ‘fuzzy’ logic based discipline. That doesn’t mean they won’t try, but people will get hurt.
We all received a really thick medical book that listed all the illnesses. You basically had to self diagnose yourself.
Or they will be staffed by foreigners like all the hospitals in Saudi Arabia.
The VA hospitals are like that now. Lots of Russian physicians that can barely speak English.
I'm going to guess that tourist locations may be interested in US-trained doctors to take care of their visitors, and may provide life-style amenities in an effort to attract such.
Aches and pains, moans and groans, taxation without representation and NOW having to watch the house salad who won reelection for the next four years?
I will prefer to close my eyes and drift away.
The Golden Years are a myth.
“Good! It’s about time Americans had to live like the rest of the world!”
— 0bama’s thoughts on this
It also looks like so called Medical Tourism is a growth industry in countries such as India, Costa Rica, Panama, etc. If you can schedule your procedure and travel, you can go to one of these countries and get first world treatment at second world prices.
This is progress.
Thailand has good medical care. You can get a policy for around $300 per year (2006) that covers just about everything. The b!tch is the long flight there.
This hospitalist is looking at exit strategies
This doctor retired early earlier this year. F’em.
I’m not spending the last 10 years of my career working for the post office!
does the thailand health plan cover siamese twins? (duckn & runnn)
I heard Howard “the Scream” Dean admit just that with my own ears. (Baltimore MD March 2011.) Obamacare will collapse the current healthcare system, resulting in single payer government run socialized medicine.
Next make medicine effiecent - fewer tests because of fewer lawsuit and make software reduce test not add them.
I know two doctors the day after the election that quit their practices. ObamaCare forces every doctor to participate at the level of Medicare or worse.
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