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YourHub.com \\ Jupiter \\ Stories \\ Health and Fitness \\ Medicine, Health Care

Vanishing Family Doctors? by Dr. Lorne Stitsky

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Contributed by: Lorne Stitsky on 10/13/2009

Where have all the Family Doctors gone?

Family physicians are considered to be in the front line in the battle against cancer and the vital early detection of diseases that affect all of us. According to a recent article in September's AARP; as the population ages, with the first wave of the nations's 78 million baby boomers due to turn 65 in 2011, experts say the shortage of primary care physicians is in a state of "crisis". Among Medicare beneficiaries, more than 1.3 million people are now having difficulty finding a new family physician.

So where have all the doctor's gone?According to Jeffrey Harris, M.D., president of the American College of Physicians, "To say that primary care is collapsing is not hyperbole, the reasons why primary care doctors are retiring early and new doctors are not replacing them are pretty much the same...their earnings on average are half or third of those of doctors of many specialties, yet their workdays are longer and their overhead is higher. Hours spent on paperwork and phone calls for prior authorizations demanded by insurance companies reduce the time spent with individual patients-so does the pressure to take on as many patients as possible to stay in business. Family doctors are in an "crisis" position because of shrinking Medicare payments that often cover only 60 percent of the cost treating a patient . Medicare also allows no adjustment for inflation, and family physicians are not compensated for the staff and time required to file claims.

Now in 2008, nearly one in five Americans -roughly 56 million people have inadequeate or no access to primary care physicians because of the shortage of such doctors, reports a study conducted jointly by the National Association of Community Health Centers and the AARP. Most of these patients have health insurance, but they are underinsured. An additional 47 million Americans have no health insurance whatsoever and crowd local hospital emergency rooms when they need urgent care. Because fees are fixed by Medicare and private insurance companies, the only way for family doctors to generate revenue is to take on more patients, which means spending less time with each- often no more than 5 to 10 minutes per visit.

When was the last time your doctor made a housecall?
The goals of this local Jupiter "House Call Doc" is to bring the "CARE" back into healthcare, for a fee of less than $4 a day. Despite the problems we as family physicians are facing, I opened my "Abacoa-based"membership practice to provide "care"to those "with or without insurance" in a comfortable "home-like" office. In March of 2008, I decided to go back to the "roots" of family medicine and base my practice model on the days of Marcus Welby, M.D. and the "old-fashioned" family doc. I love being a family physician and now provide house-calls to all my patients; at their homes or their offices, same day appointments, no waiting and up to "one hour" office visits. There is a lab in my office to draw my patients blood and an "in-office pharmacy". I plan on limiting my family practice to only 300 patients. The sole purpose of this article is make patients aware of the problems family physicians are facing and to let them know that there are still doctors out there that "care".

For more information on Dr. Lorne Stitsky, owner and founder of Personal Choice Family Practice or to schedule a free consultation call 561-779-1520 or visit www.drstitsky.com.

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