With the alarming shortage of primary care physicians facing the United States, one has to wonder if Nurse Practitioners and PAs are going to represent the new Primary Care providers. This is already one of the fastest growing segments of the healthcare industry and with the continuing shortage of family practice, internal medicine, and pediatricians, one can assume that it will not be changing anytime in the near future.
What is the answer to the shortage? Well, some say more money but how much more and how do you force the commercial insurance industry to comply with standards adopted by Medicare. There currently is no regulation specifically requiring commercial insurance companies to follow the guidelines produced by CMS. So even if CMS does what many have suggested and increase the physician fee schedule for Medicare, what makes anyone believe that commercial insurance carriers are going to just fall in line.
I hope for the sake of our healthcare system that we come up with a solution fast or we are going to be in for a rude awakening as the wait times and locations continue to dwindle.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
If you are a primary care physician, we would love to hear your opinion on the current primary care shortage.
I am a primary care physician and am actually really concerned about some of the Medicaid provisions in the current bill. I had to stop accepting Medicaid because of their payment rates and the large number of patients needing service. I ended up running a charity organization last year and could not continue on the same course this year. I am holding my breath like many of my colleagues.