- Joined
- Dec 15, 2004
- Messages
- 895
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So I am a recently minted Family physician practicing in a small city of about 75K, and working urgent care for the hospital corporation. I have found that I can easily see 30 patients (or more) in a 10 hour day. These twenty minute encounters would be more than enough to maintain a full patient load an meet RVUs if I wanted to change to the outpatient only FM (which I don't because then I couldn't also work part time as a hospitalist---I know medical care is messed up). The most frequent complaint I see in urgent care is that someone's PCP can't see them for 3 months. It seems like very few people have any kind of open access scheduling. I do not know what the barrier to open access is (hence the poll question). Given the numbers that I see, and with 3 other urgent cares in town, it would seem like someone could easily afford to have 2-3 open access appointments every half day.
So please tell me what the barriers to open access are in your practice. Are you trying to keep RVUs up? Would you rather have less money and a better lifestyle and see less patients but provide better care? Or perhaps something else?
Furthermore, with the current physician shortage (if this is still a real entity) is it correct for one physician to take less patients and therefore send more people to the urgent care or ER? As family physicians we claim to provide the most cost-effective care because we know the patient, however it appears to me in practice that we can only provide that care to small percentage of the population at any given time. Please debate and point out any an all flaws in my argument/rant.
So please tell me what the barriers to open access are in your practice. Are you trying to keep RVUs up? Would you rather have less money and a better lifestyle and see less patients but provide better care? Or perhaps something else?
Furthermore, with the current physician shortage (if this is still a real entity) is it correct for one physician to take less patients and therefore send more people to the urgent care or ER? As family physicians we claim to provide the most cost-effective care because we know the patient, however it appears to me in practice that we can only provide that care to small percentage of the population at any given time. Please debate and point out any an all flaws in my argument/rant.