An interesting article about doctor
dissatisfaction.
Sent: Tuesday,
November 18, 2008 10:06 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Many doctors plan to quit
or cut back: survey
Tue Nov 18, 1:07 am ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Primary care
doctors in the United States feel overworked and nearly half plan
to either cut back on how many patients they see or quit medicine entirely,
according to a survey released on Tuesday.
And 60 percent of 12,000 general practice
physicians found they would not recommend medicine as a career.
"The whole thing has spun out of control. I
plan to retire early even though I still love seeing patients. The process has just
become too burdensome," the Physicians' Foundation, which conducted the
survey, quoted one of the doctors as saying.
The survey adds to building evidence that not
enough internal
medicine or family
practice doctors are trained or practicing in the United States,
although there are plenty of specialist physicians.
Health care reform is near the top of the list of priorities for both Congress and
president-elect Barack Obama,
and doctor's groups are lobbying for action to reduce their workload and hold the
line on payments for treating Medicare, Medicaid and other patients with
federal or state health
insurance.
The Physicians' Foundation, founded in 2003 as
part of a settlement in an anti-racketeering lawsuit among physicians, medical
societies, and insurer Aetna, Inc., mailed surveys to 270,000 primary care
doctors and 50,000 practicing specialists.
The 12,000 answers are considered representative
of doctors as a whole, the group said, with a margin of error of about 1 percent. It found
that 78 percent of those who answered believe there is a shortage of primary
care doctors.
More than 90 percent said the time they devote
to non-clinical paperwork has increased in the last three years and 63 percent
said this has caused them to spend less time with each patient.
Eleven percent said they plan to retire and 13
percent said they plan to seek a job that removes them from active patient
care. Twenty percent said they will cut back on patients seen and 10 percent
plan to move to part-time work.
Seventy six percent of physicians said they are
working at "full capacity" or "overextended and
overworked".
Many of the health plans proposed by members of
Congress, insurers and employers's groups, as well as Obama's, suggest that electronic
medical records would go a long way to saving time and reducing
costs.
(Reporting by Maggie Fox; editing by Chris
Wilson)