Most primary care offices, under the constant barrage of insurance and government mandates, are overwhelmed. Not just the doctors but the staff as well. Over the years, these offices have added more and more staff just to handle the bureaucracy of governmental legislation which includes data entry, paperwork and phone calls. This unnecessary cost has led to providers seeing more and more patients just to break even financially. What has come out of this is a turnstile experience or a hamster-wheel mentality. Patients are getting less time with their doctors, which has been frustrating for everyone. During the visit, it is not uncommon for a doctor to stare at his or her computer answering questions from third parties all the while ignoring questions from the patient. Patients are unhappy. Doctors are unhappy. Healthcare purchasers are unhappy. Yet insurance companies, bureaucratic administrators, and many politicians are happy. They are raking it in and have what they always wanted – control.
The healthcare system is broken and these trends are only getting worse. Doctors who historically were your advocate have lost independence as most of them now work for hospitals or very large groups/systems. These groups do this to show strength in numbers in order to bargain better with the insurance companies or obtain favored compensation by the government. Doctors are now part of the machine and are just trying to get through their days. With physicians having an allegiance to their employers, patients have lost the most important advocate for their health - their family doctor and that true patient-doctor relationship. Unfortunately, no one has come up with good solutions. Why is that? Well, since the 1970s the number of physicians in this country has pretty much stayed about the same. The number of administrators, however, has risen at an astonishing rate of 3000%!
This rate is unsustainable because administrators do not bring in any money into the system but drive up health care costs. Administrators force more and more out of the providers. They do this by making doctors see more patients or making them do more computer “chores” to hopefully get some bogus award for their shelves. But where does that leave the patients?
Doctors truly want to help their patients. They went to medical school with an altruistic and idealistic vision. Unfortunately, the environment of today’s healthcare system now forces doctors to do whatever it takes to survive. This mean quick visits. This means impersonalized care. This means staring at the computer. This means spending more time each day doing paper/computer work time with their patients. This means giving up OB, your hospital care, family time and sleep.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Thanks to Direct Primary Care, we will soon have more providers than staff and you will be able to communicate and work DIRECTLY with your provider here at the clinic. If you want a trusted provider who will spend time with you, who will stay in touch with you, and who you can trust, then we invite you to join us at CompassDirect Healthcare!
Request to join today at: https://www.compassdirecthealthcare.com/providers