More thoughts on supply and demand

I am pleased to have initiated a spirited discussion with my last post. Several interesting posts from a non-physician which highlight the problem that I meant to pose. We (generalists) have no financial incentive to spend more time with patients. Part of the doctor patient relationship stems from adequate time!

We have such a surplus of patients that we do not have a financial incentive to keep anyone as a patient. There are more than enough patients out there. If we lose one, we gain another. This is what I meant when I introduced the supply and demand concept.

Few established physicians can take new patients. This is not an efficient method for providing health care. Too many patients must use ERs for their care. Too many patient seek out subspecialists first.

The shortage of generalists is a major problem in health care. It is getting worse all the time. But this problem seems to be “under the radar”. I hope other bloggers will join my crusade to explicate this problem for all to understand.

The job is interesting, emotionally and intellectually rewarding and important. Yet the incentives push students and residents away from these careers. Patient care suffers (here I express my opinion and biases gained over 30 years of caring for patients) from the lack of excellent generalists.

We must make the government (Medicare) and the insurers understand this problem They are wasting money in health care because they do not spend enough to get good generalist care.