Why It Takes Forever to Get a Doctor ’ s Appointment

Recently I faced consoling a patient of mine who couldn’t understand why I was unable to “hop on the phone” to discuss her new back pain. When she finally got an appointment with me weeks later, I decided to be honest. I shared that I had 1,300 patients who call me their primary doctor. After I’m done seeing patients at 5 PM, I tend to 50 to 100 messages and notifications. I take three to four hours of work home with me every night. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] I didn’t share these stats to elicit sympathy, but soon our roles had reversed. My patient overflowed with apologies and demanded to know who was doing this to me. This is the paradox that defines modern American medicine: Doctors are working harder and longer, all while patients can access us less. As a practicing internal medicine physician and oncologist, I believe we reached this unsustainable state due to fundamentally misaligned division of labor – between human and machine, between doctors and support staff, and between what is paid for and what good medical care requires. As a doctor, I am no stranger to hard work. But the ways doctors’ workloads are exploding are largely clerical and bureaucratic. Ironically, a big culprit is electronic medical records. Paper records were converted to electronic charts over a decade ago, with the incredible potential to connect enormous amounts of patient data seamlessly. However, the very technology that was ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance Source Type: news