November 02, 2006
How Good Is Your Primary Care Physician?
Everytime I hear or read that the U.S. health care system is the best in the world, I wonder why we wind up so low on so many basic indicators like longevity and infant mortality. A study out today that focuses on primary care -- that first interface with the health care system -- helps explain why.
A Commonwealth Fund survey published in Health Affairs asked 6,000 primary care physicians in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Netherlands about their practices. I am especially sensitive to this topic because my wife and I, both approaching 60, are desperately seeking a decent doc to replace the ones assigned us by our HMO.
Here's what the study found:
Primary care doctors in the U.S. are less likely . . . to be able to offer patients access to care outside regular office hours or to have systems that alert doctors to potentially harmful drug interactions. U.S. primary care physicians are also less likely to receive financial incentives for improving patient care.
Yup. Sounds like our experience. Here's another disturbing finding from the study: "Only about a quarter of primary care doctors in the U.S. (28%) and Canada (23%) use electronic medical records, compared with a large majority of primary care doctors in the Netherlands, (98%), New Zealand (92%), the U.K. (89%) and Australia (79%)."
Exactly. I know what my blood pressure and cholesterol levels are today; but I have no idea what they were five years ago. And neither does my doctor.
And we're the high-tech society?
Did you know that US primary care physicians are one of the least likely to have comprehensive clinical information systems? They are also one of the least likely to have incentives targeted on quality. US physicians have the highest percentage of patients who find it hard to pay for care.
Posted by: Opiate Detox at November 5, 2006 04:52 AMI'm 69 and can only comment on doctors that accept medicare patents.
I believe that many of the few doctors who do accept medicare and medicad were not close to the top of their class.
With continued goverment reductions in compensation many feel the need to radically increase the number of patients they see an hour.....allowing their staff to over book to the point the waiting times often extend to over an hour. Thus when an exasperated(furious)patient finally does get to see the docter, they are so out of sorts(seeing the doctor open the door with a blank stare as in who are you and then needing to speed read their files, often missing important follow ups doesn't help), they don't demand the time and attention they deserve.
Many pay most of their staff low end wages with very little training, thus return calls and prescription refils can take days if done at all.
With people of limited financial resources and serious health issues, the reality of their lack of choices, often causes emotional pain to the point they quit even seeing the doctor.
Posted by: eddie stinson at November 6, 2006 01:30 PM