If primary care is to be the focal point of our national healthcare system, then there should be a discussion of how this initial care is rendered and what its goal should be. Right now, the initial care leads to other problems which complication the definitive care of the patient and cost the healthcare system more than it should. The current approach has evovled, as primary care physicians have become busier dealing with an increasingly larger number of patients on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service rolls.
Perhaps there is an alternative to more primary care physicians to provide the basic care. The current system and its evolution to the full blown Affordable Health Care Act has significant waste in it which has not been addressed in any way by the President and Congress. This discussion calls attention to a portion of this waste, which is substanital and could be changed with nonphysician providers and better education of students and residents.
The conventional wisdom has been to provide more physicians, but in this instance, that may not be the correct approach. Will Rogers said, “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.” The hole we have dug in this country is one which requires extraordinary thinking to fill. Hopefully in this case it will include a consideration of methods and personnel.
Author's Disclosure Statement. The author reports no actual or potential conflict of interest in relation to this article.