Love the idea of family med but Hate how little time I get with patients

[flapjack3d]

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My only experience in primary care has been at a resident clinic for a few days and in a safety-net clinic for a month. In both places, I enjoyed talking about the patients lifestyle but it felt futile when I only have 15 minutes to talk to a patient and have to check my boxes and address the patient's acute issues. Is this the reality of primary care? My ideal situation would be in Direct Primary Care, but I understand that M4A (which I definitely support!) will probably make this impossible.

 

[IMGASMD]

My only experience in primary care has been at a resident clinic for a few days and in a safety-net clinic for a month. In both places, I enjoyed talking about the patients lifestyle but it felt futile when I only have 15 minutes to talk to a patient and have to check my boxes and address the patient's acute issues. Is this the reality of primary care? My ideal situation would be in Direct Primary Care, but I understand that M4A (which I definitely support!) will probably make this impossible.

Resident clinic is very different than real life office. Very different demographic. In real life you may have even less time than that.
But you can set up your practice any ways you want. you need to get more experiences with other specialities before you decide.

 

[aafisahar]

Primary care is a loss leader for healthcare systems and gets treated as such. PC exists to capture patients so that high reimbursing specialties have a steady supply of patients (joints, hearts, increasingly cancer).

You can get around this by going full private practice or concierge medicine but don't expect a big health system to accodomate a slow pace even if it's what's best for the patient.

 

[Mad Jack]

My only experience in primary care has been at a resident clinic for a few days and in a safety-net clinic for a month. In both places, I enjoyed talking about the patients lifestyle but it felt futile when I only have 15 minutes to talk to a patient and have to check my boxes and address the patient's acute issues. Is this the reality of primary care? My ideal situation would be in Direct Primary Care, but I understand that M4A (which I definitely support!) will probably make this impossible.

DPC will be possible in any foreseeable change, as the US government likely will not force providers to accept insurance, but rather make sure everyone has insurance, which are entirely different things. If you want to take cash, you'll always be able to

 

[AMEHigh]

One good thing about FM is that you can kind of shape how you practice and what patients you generally see. I didn’t really enjoy FM during med school but love it and am glad it’s my career.
It’s nice to be able to do a quick procedure like an IUD or endometrial biopsy one minute and then the next minute spending more time talking about a medical issue.

As your knowledge and skills improve so does your speed. Sometimes I do wish I had a little more time and didn’t have more patients waiting, but to be honest I really don’t want to spend an hour with most patients haha.

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

DPC will be possible in any foreseeable change, as the US government likely will not force providers to accept insurance, but rather make sure everyone has insurance, which are entirely different things. If you want to take cash, you'll always be able to

That is nowhere near certain.

Under some of the M4A plans, you will not be allowed to bill for anything Medicare covers unless you bill Medicare for it.

 

[psychapp121]

That is nowhere near certain.

Under some of the M4A plans, you will not be allowed to bill for anything Medicare covers unless you bill Medicare for it.

it’s a cash transaction between two people, how would anyone even know?

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

it’s a cash transaction between two people, how would anyone even know?

How do they know now? Because there have been quite a few DPC Medicare lawsuits.

 

[psychapp121]

How do they know now? Because there have been quite a few DPC Medicare lawsuits.

that’s so bad that’s essentially slavery then

 

[Govols22]

that’s so bad that’s essentially slavery then

I think we have different views on what we call slavery.