Physicians are facing several challenges and obstacles in recent times. Physicians are devoted to the practicing medicine and the well-being of their patients. However, they have been facing some serious issues due to healthcare plans. Here is an overview of the challenges:
Lesser Time with Patients
A recent study shows that physicians spent just 27% of a day or shift with the patients, and around 50% of the time on “desk works” or electronic health records. Electronic documentation, accompanied by several other administrative burdens forces them to spend as little time possible with the patients, and more time doing paperwork on the desk.
This imbalance has taken a toll on the physicians and other practitioners who want to spend more time with their patients to provide optimized care.
Regulatory Requirements
As said before, physicians need to deal with massive administrative burdens and paperwork regularly. They have to feed tons of data and information to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for reimbursement. Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) ensures that these works are done regularly.
Administrative Cost
There was a time, when after finishing training in the medical school, residency and other specialties, most doctors opened their practice or joined an existing practice. This helped them build a relation with their patient population. However, in more recent years, the administrative cost to open and operate a clinic has increased significantly. Electronic medical record systems, billing companies, pre-authorizations requirements, rent, insurance for the staff and many other costs have pushed many physicians to join a bigger medical group or hospital system as an employee rather than an independent practice.
Lack of Staffing
The healthcare systems and hospitals have undertaken multiple independent practices in recent years. This trend is more prominent in the case of rural hospitals than urban hospitals. Needless to say, it has become a challenging task to find qualified nurses and administrative staff that can run a private clinic. What’s more challenging is to retain them.
All these challenges have led physicians to look for alternatives. With time, more and more of them are opting for the Direct Primary Care model to do what they do the best – CARE.
