Why it’s so hard to find a primary care doctor?

These days, you can wait a long time to see a primary care doctor, and you are too often forced to switch from one to another. Insurers do not treat continuity of care as a value and limit your coverage to their ever-changing and often restricted network of providers. It’s hard to get an annual check up without a long wait.

Massachusetts is looking into the shortage of primary care doctors with the goal of increasing their numbers. You need a primary care doctor. The shortage will continue unless government acts.

Three key reasons for the shortage:

1. The bulk of primary care doctors in the US are older, averaging 55 years old, and retiring by the time they are 65. Others are just exhausted by their workload and administrative demands on them.
2. New physicians are less likely to go into primary care because insurers pay little for preventive services; the provider money is in procedures and tests to treat conditions. Moreover, medical school can be very expensive and becoming a specialist allows physicians to pay off their debt more quickly.
3. Those primary care doctors who continue to practice either end up doing new services to make money or going into concierge medicine, which gives them more time with patients and less administrative hassle.

What is the value of having a primary care physician? Preventive services help identify diseases early or stop them altogether.

What is to be done? We need to pay higher rates to primary care physicians and reduce their administrative burdens. As a society, we need to be investing in primary care.

Here’s more from Just Care:

• Primary care in Medicare Advantage: A crapshoot
• Six reasons you need a primary care doctor in this age of specialization
• How to prepare for your doctor’s visit
• Four questions to ask yourself about your primary care doctor
• Six tips for helping your loved ones change unhealthy behaviors