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0 pointsghaff3y ago0 comments

My primary care doctor dropped me a few years back. He said his solo practice couldn't handle the paperwork of having so many patients so he went to just seeing patients for his specialty.

He was admittedly older and had never particularly embraced computers and so forth.

(And then my new PCP retired during the pandemic.)

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pavon3y ago

In the 20 years since I've graduated college, the longest I've had the same PCP is 3 years, about half of the remainder I had for 2 years, and the rest I only saw once before they left and I had to change again. Even if they do stay, they have to see so many patients (~1000 per PCP is what I've heard) that they won't remember anything about me, and will be no better at treating me than a doctor pulled at random.

For people with chronic conditions a PCP makes sense, for the rest of us it is just another pointless loop you have to jump through.

mistrial93y ago

almost every single general/primary care Medical Doctor's office in this area of California closed doors after the year 2000 or so.. Paperwork related to insurance billing, and inability to compete with Big Managed Care (Kaiser Health) for work conditions and benefits, is what I heard as reasons.. the offices were empty commercial space, it was noticeable how many there were...

dt3ft3y ago

Isn’t there any software for solo practices out there?

JshWright3y ago

Obvious bias, since I work there, but Elation Health is very focused on building EHR software that makes it possible for independent primary care providers to be successful and not have to spend hours per day doing paperwork.

https://www.elationhealth.com/

Speaking from personal experience, moonlighting as a paramedic, paperwork is a universal challenge in healthcare (I often spend more time documenting a call than the call itself took from patient contact to transfer of care to the ER). It is shockingly rare for EHRs (regardless of the speciality they focus on) to actively try to make life better for the clinician. That's a large part of why I'm at Elation for my day job; the founders (and therefore the whole company) have a ton of empathy for the doctors (and staff) we serve.

ghaffOP3y ago

He was part of a hospital system so he used their software. I know nothing about medical software but my impression is that there is a huge amount of paperwork regardless involving insurance, prescriptions, testing, etc. Stuff is more integrated and electronic than it used to be but there's still a lot of manual interactions, phone calls, faxes, etc.

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