An NP or PA is as good as an FP--if that NP or PA has lots and lots, years and years, of experience
If he is still wearing braces, run for the hills. The Green ones will kill ya.
We need--trauma surgeons, general surgeons, specialists and internal medicine specialists.
We can deal with the lack of FPs by trying to work NPs and PAs as hard as we can when they are young, so that they become good para-physicians.
That's my 2 cents, not that anyone gives a flip.
I suspect this all comes from the FP licensing boards, or people with a vested financial interest in the dying and increasingly irrelevant specialty of "family practice" --
My cardiologist told me months ago that if the election didn’t go well, he is looking into moving to Australia.
He wasn’t joking.
My cardiologist told me months ago that if the election didn’t go well, he is looking into moving to Australia.
He wasn’t joking.
No matter the cause, and no matter how much Obamacare did not address the cause - access to and quality of primary care physicians - I think the general problem is real.
Primary care physicians are not among the most well-rewarded doctors, and yet in the best of settings their role is every bit as important as medical specialists, if not more so in the immediate sense when an adverse health condition arises and medical help is needed.
One of the key roles of a good primary care physician is in initial diagnosis, and in that process recognizing when a medical speciality, or different medical specialities are best suited for either more extensive diagnosis or treatment; or not.
It is a difficuly role in which referral to a medical speciality can be recommended, or failed to be called upon too often (often). When abused - calling on various medical specialities more often than really needed - the process raises health care costs without improving outcomes, and when denied to an excess patients receive inadequate care and excessive times reaching a good resolution of an issue. The health care industry is plagued with both of those problems - too much and too little use of medical specialists - and we can only expect that it is the medical education institutions that fail to produce significant numbers of very good primary care doctors.
The solution does not require any federal program or federal dollars. It requires the medical education to make better use of the dollars they already obtain, particularly in the area of the education of primary care physicians. It would not hurt for those institutions to raise, among their students, the importance of the primary care doctor in making those patient assessments that most correctly and most efficiently employ the servicea of medical specialists.
The three docs in our family circle are closing their practices next year. The Medicaid crowd will have go to the White House for healing from Obama.
When the doctor shortage gets really bad - and it will - dems will solve the ‘problem’ by lowing standards for medical personalel...
“Job Training Programs’ those spread the wealth around boondoggles for inner city neighborhoods will now be the the perferred training centers for medical assistants. Your new ‘doctor’ will by the guy who couldn’t find a job because his rap sheet was too long...
“Job Training Programs’ those 'spread the wealth around boondoggles' for inner city neighborhoods will now be the the preferred training centers for medical assistants. Your new ‘doctor’ will be the guy who couldn't find a job because his rap sheet was too long...
Adding primary care doctors and physicians extenders (PAs, NPs)at the expense of specialists will drastically reduce quality. All the major advances in life expectency and QOL are via speciality care. PCPs, NPs and PAs can’t give chemo, put in hips or coronary stents.
This will get very ugly, guaranteed.
Not only do they want to put insurance companies out of business, but they also want to restrict the number of doctors so they can control who becomes a doctor. Then they will set it up so doctors get a salary just a bit higher than a subway-sweeper job.
Just like in the Soviet Union.
Look it up.
The big problem will be in Medicaid and Medicare. Both programs work by paying doctors directly for having treated someone. The problem is that reimbursements to doctors keep getting cut. At this point, when most doctors treat Medicaid patients, it is a charity case because they lose money. That’s why it is hard for Medicaid patients to even find a doctor who will treat them.
The result is that Medicaid patients get terrible medical care. The recent Univ VA study of surgical outcomes for Medicaid patients found that they were 97% more likely to die in surgery than privately insured patients. It also found they were 13% more likely to die in surgery than UNINSURED patients.
Most people don’t know this. But the Chief Medicare Actuary has projected the Medicare cuts that are in Obamacare. His estimates are that by 2019, Medicare doctors will be receiving LOWER reimbursements than Medicaid doctors. The inevitable result of this is the same, or worse, medical care for the elderly on Medicare than for the low-income on Medicaid. I have a friend on Medicare whose cardiologist has stopped treating him because of the Medicare cuts coming in Obamacare. He has been unable to find a replacement who is willing to treat him despite a six month search, despite an ongoing cardiology problem that is non-trivial.
bookmark
What could possibly go wrong...
Dramatically increase the number of patients who will abuse the system, since they’ll be getting “free” medical “care.”
Don’t increase the number of doctors...
Watch the number of existing doctors drop, as new price controls are placed on what the doctors are allowed to charge for their services, while the price of the procedures go up, due to new taxes on medical devices and instruments.
Yup, what can go wrong?
Of course, Obama recently admitted that he really can’t handle 7th grade math...
Mark
Meanwhile, 59 million Obama voters said “No more Doctors? That’s TERRIBLE! We need to do something to address this horrific iss.......wait, is that American Idol?”
the doctors in my husband’s extended family have all indicated that they will close their practices as soon as they can. They’ve already stopped accepting new patients.
And, they said no way would they encourage their children going into medicine. Not here in the US at least...
There will not be a doctor shortage. Each doctor that leaves will be replaced with an affirmative action. The medical knowledge and expertese will drop to zero, but there will be no doctor shortage.
No problem. We will just evaluate the members of the Department of Education and those that qualify will be sent to the appropriate Department of Vocational later training. When their training is completed, they will be assigned a medical facility for their occupational duties.
Our name is Equality 7-2521
10,000 Dr Mohammid from Pakistan will be right over as soon as Barry send the word.
I have an extended family member who is a Nursing Assistant (i.e. glorified bed pan emptier) at a local hospital. Her employer has been putting them all through training on HOW TO GIVE A ROUTINE PHYSICAL.
For what its worth.