Primary Care: The Milk in the Back of the Store

As Leeba Lessin (CareMore President) stated ”Primary care has become a specialty referring mechanism, not care driven.” Said differently, our flawed reimbursement model has effectively turned primary care physicians (PCP) into “milk in the back of the store” — i.e., a low margin service intended to direct people to high margin products/services. If a PCP can only make a good living by averaging 7-minute visits with patients, there is little choice but to rapidly figure out whether the presenting symptom is best addressed by a pill, test, or procedure. It’s no wonder that the most unsatisfied physicians are PCPs operating in that broken model.

From an article by David Chase in Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davechase/2013/04/30/the-hot-spotters-sequel-population-health-heroes/