Across Mass., wait to see doctors grows
The wait to see primary care doctors in Massachusetts has grown to as long as 100 days, while the number of practices accepting new patients has dipped in the past four years, with care the scarcest in some rural areas.
Now, as the state's health insurance mandate threatens to make a chronic doctor shortage worse, the Legislature has approved an unprecedented set of financial incentives for young physicians, and other programs to attract primary care doctors. But healthcare leaders fear the new measures will take several years to ease the shortage.
Okay, raise your hand if you didn't see this coming. MA passes a law that says all MA residents must have health insurance. Doesn't matter if you're a healthy young adult with no history of medical issues who can chance not having insurance - in this case, you have no right to "choose" what to do with your body.
The medical profession then sees the writing on the wall: increasing regulation and interference by the state under the guise of protecting the Medicare "investment" as more formerly uninsured folks start going to the doctor. The article states that only 2% of all medical school graduates go into Primary Care.
Hmmm. Waits of 1 to 3 months to see a doctor. Why does that sound familiar?
That is all.
5 comments:
why the hell are people putting up with this.
granted I'm RN and won't put up with that crap. I can't stand the crap MD offices try to pull. If my office take 100 days to get me into see my doctor I'm looking for a new doctor.
My huge pet peeve is MD offices telling you it take 2 weeks to get your lab results back and they will contact you if there's a problem. Let me clue everyone in, your MD office has access to those result within 24hrs ( often less/ barring special tests that actually take days or have to be sent out).
It might take 2 wks for the damn lab to send a paper copy to your MD's office. but 90% of office have computer access to the result if they want to bother to look, or someone can actually CALL the lab and get the results!!!!
the Kids and I go to a small office, just one MD and a NP. I can get the kids or my a physcial with a week or 2. a sick visit is ALWAYS same day. if I call off hours I usually get the doc calling me back.
also there are NOT 20 sick kids in the waiting room getting my kids sick!!!
If you think this is bad, wait and see what happens if God forbid universal health care passes!!!!
Yeah, you can file this one under "DUH."
And just think, Obama wants to make a system like this apply nationwide. Doesn't matter that it's not working on a small scale in Mass, he's the lightworker, if he tries hard enough he'll MAKE it work.
Not that his veto wouldn't have been over-ridden by the socialist state legislature, but you can still thank Mitt Romney for signing off on that piece of garbage.
Rationed healthcare and bigoted gun laws, the real Romney legacy.
Thank God he's not on the GOP ticket.
Primary care is a fairly unattractive specialty because the doctor is on call most of the time. If not the doctor himself, an associate or SOMEONE is on call. No one can stand to be sick for more than, oh say, 24 minutes before they decide to call the doctor. That's a different story though.
I'd also guess, but I don't know for sure, that reimbursement rates for primary care are much lower than for specialties, although the work rate isn't.
I posted about the problems of Primary Care Doctors a few months ago. Here's the link in case anyone is interested. http://tooldtowork.blogspot.com/2008/06/doctors-lament.html
Mike W. said, it will be worse if we get "Obamacare".
Remember what I say,
"Socialized medicine combines the efficiency of FEMA with the compassion of the IRS".
Or, "if you like how they deliver your mail, you'll love how they deliver your babies"...
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