Family Doctors on Brink of Extinction

Monday, 27 June 2011 | by Pat's Picks

You know those drug commercials that tell you to “ask your doctor if X is right for you?” Well, they are killing the primary-care physician says the LA Times. Family doctors are overworked these days, in part because patients are demanding more from them. There’s an added pressure to complete so many tasks in the alloted 15 to 20-minute appointment—“more preventive services, more care for chronic diseases, more healthful lifestyle coaching, more screening for depression and risky behavior (guns? cigarettes? bike helmets?), more delicate discussions (prostate biopsy? end-of-life wishes?), more documentation and now electronic records”—that many medical students are opting to specialize instead; the number of American medical students who opted to study primary care dropped by nearly one-half over the past decade. Part of the problem, according to experts, is that most insurers only reimburse doctors for face-to-face visits, killing the incentive to implement time-saving appointments by phone or email.