Physicians Are Disappearing from the Front Line of Healthcare

A recent, longish article in theNew York Times discussed the"disappearing doctor" from the front line of healthcare by which is meant walk-in retail clinics in drug stores and urgent care centers (see:The Disappearing Doctor: How Mega-Mergers Are Changing the Business of Medical Care). People are flocking to these facilities because they are readily accessible, user-friendly, and efficient. Patients with the most serious injuries and diseases are triaged to hospital ERs so the patient mix at these walk-in centers is more homogeneous. Below is an excerpt from the article:...[The] reason big players like CVS Health, the drugstore chain, and most recently Walmart, the giant retailer, are eyeing deals with Aetna and Humana, respectively, to use their stores to deliver medical care. People are flocking to retail clinics and urgent care centers in strip malls or shopping centers, where simple health needs can usually be tended to by health professionals like nurse practitioners or physician assistants much more cheaply than in a doctor ’s office. Some 12,000 are already scattered across the country....On the other side, office visits to primary care doctors declined 18 percent from 2012 to 2016, even as visits to specialists increased....There ’s little doubt that the front line of medicine — the traditional family or primary care doctor — has been under siege for years. Long hours and low pay have transformed pediatric or family practices into unattractive ...
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