Can direct pay improve the shortage of primary care in the United States?

摘要

As human beings susceptible to illness and injury, we all need primary care. Urologists also need primary care colleagues to help treat the nonuro-logical conditions of their patients. We all lose when excellent physicians retire early or excellent students turn away from primary care. Students tell me they like the concept of primary care but they do not like the stress they see on rotations, resulting from rushed days, short visits and mountains of paperwork. Similar opinions are expressed by practicing physicians via journal articles and surveys. For example, "The thing we heard over and over again from the physicians was that they're unhappy they can't spend more time with their patients, which is why they went into primary care in the first place."