Perceptions of primary care in Korea: a comparison of patient and physician focus group discussions

Conclusions: The focus group discussions revealed that such discrepancies in perception have resulted from Korea?s distorted healthcare delivery system, undifferentiated roles among healthcare organizations, patients? freedom of choice in selecting healthcare providers and other institutional factors. There are several steps that should be taken to promote primary care in Korea. First, we should undertake efforts to improve the quality of primary care provided by physicians. Second, we should inform the general public about using clinics instead of hospitals for the treatment of simple or minor diseases. Third, we should introduce a new compensation scheme to compensate physicians for services related to health education, disease prevention, behavioral change and nutrition consultation. Finally, we should provide additional reimbursement so that primary care physicians can extend their office hours to better meet the needs of patients.
Source: BMC Family Practice - Category: Primary Care Authors: Source Type: research