Connecticut is Already Beginning to Look Like Canada
According to a survey by the medical society, which polled 498 doctors, 28 percent of internists and 26 percent of family physicians said they already are not accepting new patients. Additionally, new patients have to wait an average of 18 days for a routine office visit, while existing patients have to wait 16 days to see a pediatrician or 15 days for an internist. The results confirm Connecticut’s primary-care capacity is already stretched thin.
Full article on primary-care doctor shortages.
Move to France, they have 50% more physicians per capita, and great food.
artk,
I cannot speak French so my ideas on how to increase access to care includes allowing so-called “physician extenders” to practice with greater autonomy, relaxing regulations on telemedicine, moving more swiftly to approve over-the-counter drugs and potentially create a third class of drugs (behind the counter drugs) that pharmacists could dispense without a prescription.
In addition, there are proposals to compress physician education (sometimes eliminating the 4th year of medical school for general practitioners or the 4th year of undergraduate degree for those pursing medical training in primary care, which I believe is done in France).
France does not ration by waiting. Canada does. So does Britain.
When do shortages occur? When prices are set below the equilibrium price. None of the physician shortage articles currently proliferating in the media ever discuss whether people who pay market prices have trouble finding a physician. Wait time can vary by payment status–cash, PPO, HMO, Medicaid, and Medicare are not the same.
Reporters also fail to distinguish between waits for routine preventive stuff and acute care appointments. One practice I know of schedules physicals months in advance but guarantees a same day appointment when someone is acutely ill.
As Connecticut goes, so goes the nation.
I think this is going to start happening everywhere.