Where have all the doctors gone?
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Anonymous
Doctors are not the expensive line item in medicine and much of what a doctor does has progressively been given to nurses. I'm not opposed to this idea, but it will not fix much. |
Anonymous
This is the biggest problem with medicine at the moment. Doctors are treated as a cog in a machine. Physician groups are bought and sold, everything is maximized for profits, not patient outcomes. https://hms.harvard.edu/news/what-happens-when-private-equity-takes-over-hospital |
Anonymous
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There are a number of articles in the last 10 years with the title: "Where have all the Doctors Gone?". If you read a few of those you'll realize it isn't the patients that are driving Drs away. I'm sure we're the same messy group we always were. It's the larger health care system especially: health insurance, liability insurance, limits on the number of acceptances to medical school placed by the AMA, paperwork that only a Dr can approve, requirement to be associated with a medical institution etc.
Spending energy arguing, pointing fingers back and forth between Doctors and patients is very counterproductive. Those are the two groups least responsible for the problem. |
Anonymous
Concierge medicine seems burgeoning. |
Anonymous
Because the powers that be lobby hard to keep the profession small and exclusive so that their salaries remain high. Medical school admissions have become next level crazy now. |
Anonymous
| I'm tired of NP being offered as a substitute for a MD. |
Anonymous
I'm tired of making an appt with the MD getting their and being pawned off on a NP, I get the EOB and bill and they charge for the MD appt. To me this is fraud. |
Anonymous
I felt a bit guilty, like part of the problem, when I finally decided to pay for a concierge doctor. But guess what has happened -- in a year my health is significantly better. YMMV, of course. I had multiple health issues that the pcp I couldn't get in to see very often ignored, most of them interacting with each other and exacerbating things. The concierge doctor has addressed all of it, and I feel so much better and am much healthier. But without a complicated situation like mine, you probably don't need a concierge doctor. |
Anonymous
When it finally caused me problems due to the NP getting multiple things wrong, I left my pcp's practice for a concierge one. It was pretty clear that the practice was so busy I'd never see my actual doctor again except for my annual physical -- and that needed to be scheduled 6 months in advance. |
Anonymous
Sadly some are better, some not. |
Anonymous
I have wondered about this. If part of the point of having all of these NPs and PAs is cutting costs, why are we billed at the same amount for the office visit as we would be if we had seen the MD? Because it is absolutely not the same. The practice is billing the same amount, but not paying the provider the same amount. |
Anonymous
The np I see has been far more helpful than an md. Many md have gotten my issues wrong. |
Anonymous
Did the NP do something different than a doctor? Probably not. Systemwide it saves money on healthcare because insurance companies can reimburse less knowing that NPs should be covering most of those visits. |
Anonymous
The limiting step isn't the number of seats for medical school classes, but the clinical spots for training in vivo. For example, one of the biggest problems with NP diploma mills is that they send NP students out to find their own placements for clinical training. They can't, or what they do find is insufficient. Medical students (like NPs) don't make a clinic or hospital run more efficiently -- they are a drag on time and attention, and that's fine! They are supposed to be learners. But that means slower patient care, and when clinical situations are being driven by profit metrics (especially with private equity firm control), they are a real liability. Upper level residents are different, as they can help quite a bit and function with some measure of autonomy. But it takes forever to get them there, and nobody in the current medical environment able to do it is willing to do it. |
Anonymous
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Doctors lol there will be none once the “concept of a plan”
Is installed Basically maga idiots privatizing healthcare because the morons have no idea the ACA is Obamacare. Costs are going to skyrocket and no one will be on obgyn so … Republicans cult of idiots |