Those who are thinking about ways to reform the health care system would do well to consider this:
Primary care doctors in the United States feel overworked and nearly half plan to either cut back on how many patients they see or quit medicine entirely, according to a survey released on Tuesday.
And 60 percent of 12,000 general practice physicians found they would not recommend medicine as a career.
“The whole thing has spun out of control. I plan to retire early even though I still love seeing patients. The process has just become too burdensome,” the Physicians’ Foundation, which conducted the survey, quoted one of the doctors as saying. . .
The 12,000 answers are considered representative of doctors as a whole, the group said, with a margin of error of about 1 percent. It found that 78 percent of those who answered believe there is a shortage of primary care doctors.
One major problem is the paperwork:
More than 90 percent said the time they devote to non-clinical paperwork has increased in the last three years and 63 percent said this has caused them to spend less time with each patient. . .
Many of the health plans proposed by members of Congress, insurers and employers’s groups, as well as Obama’s, suggest that electronic medical records would go a long way to saving time and reducing costs.
Electronic medical records seem like a good idea (if they can keep them secure — a big if), but I don’t see how they would make a significant dent in the time spent on paperwork. Doing paperwork on a computer might be a little faster than doing it on paper, but hardly dramatically so. It seems that the primary advantage of electronic medical records would be from accessibility, searchability, and legibility.
Also, the idea that extending governmental control over health care could reduce its paperwork burden is a preposterous fantasy. I know; I used to fill out the forms to show compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act.
Internet Scofflaw 