http://www.medpagetoday.com/PublicHealthPolicy/WorkForce/36818?utm_content=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DailyHeadlines&utm_source=WC&xid=NL_DHE_2013-01-12&eun=g578717d0r

Doc Shortage May Be Smaller Than Projected

From the article:

By working in practices of two or three doctors while shifting as little as 20% of patients to a non-physician provider and using an EHR, “most if not all of the projected primary care physician shortage could be eliminated,” according to an analysis of several scenarios published in the January issue of Health Affairs.

Let’s look at the numbers.. if everyone is covered by Obamacare or some other insurance carrier.. that is 300 + million potential pts.. this report would suggest that ~ 60 million pts will be seeing non-physician providers.. It is estimated that 30-50 million will be added to the pool of pts that have medical insurance.

It was also recently reported that 42% of the docs are >55 y/o

Those numbers would suggest that either a number of docs are going to quit practicing and/or pull back on the number of hours that they work every week…

If the trend of physician practices continue to be sold to hospitals… more and more docs will be employees… just like the majority of RPH’s…  The more senior docs may find it difficult to deal with the edicts from the MBA’s as they crunch the numbers to remain profitable under Obamacare or under capitation payments of a ACO.

The times they are a changin….

Filed under: General Problems