It’s all about the cost, forget the physician relationship:
FP Michael J. Morris of Willmar, MN, thinks the insurer’s approach to this issue works against its efforts (and those of other plans) to encourage primary care doctors to manage patients’ overall health. A nurse at a walk-in clinic, he says, isn’t likely to check patients’ cholesterol, make sure they’re up on their immunizations, and talk to them about their weight or their smoking habit. “Those are things that people usually don’t come in for,” Morris says. “You catch them at the same time they’re in for an acute illness, and try to include their healthcare maintenance simultaneously. So one of the main problems with retail clinics is that they fragment the care.”
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Isn’t it also about individual choice? Some people want to have a doctor to manage their overall health and give them advice on prevention. Others just want to go to a doctor only when they are sick and don’t care about how high their cholesterol is. Will they die of heart attack that could’ve been prevented? Maybe, maybe not, but it is still their choice. Yet others are somewhere in-between – want to have a doctor for most of their care but also want to have a place to go to get quick help for minor things. Or someone may be a tourist or a visitor whose doctor is far away and would like to have a place to go other than a busy ER for non life-threatening emergencies. As long as someone is an adult, surely he/she should be able to decide for themselves what type of care they want.
As far as smoking advice is concerned one must be a total idiot not to know that smoking is bad for health. Those who continue choose to ignore it and those who stop make their own decision. Seriously, how many of your patients stopped smoking just because their doctor told them to?
Kids need to have a doctor, but for adults it is a matter of personal choice.
You physicians tell us time and time again on this site that you don’t have time for the relationship because you don’t get paid for it. Now you blame us because we look at cost factors?
Kevin, at what point do you guys take responsibility for ANYTHING?
Kevin is absolutely responsibility free,as are many other Drs.
If you read enough on this site you learn that their opinions change to match whatever they are talking about at any given moment. Strange you don’t see that on any of the other Doc’s BLOG sites.
Also, this site has more flaming going on than all the other’s put together. Why?
I know people tend to be critical of the walk-in clinics because of the lack of continuity of care, etc. But, in my case it’s not the existence of the walk-in clinics that affect continuity of care, rather it is because my GP is often booked up a week or two in advance. I tend to see a doctor when I’m really sick, not for every ache and pain. I’m young and in good health, so I don’t go often. When I’m ill I need to be seen sooner than a week or two. I would prefer to see my GP and I always try him first, but if he’s booked up, then I have to go somewhere else.
A couple of years ago I made an appointment with my GP(the soonest I could get in was a week away). I tried to wait, but I was getting a lot worse so I finally gave in and went to a walk-in clinic. After the doctor chastised me for waiting so long I was transported straight to a hospital where I stayed for 4 days. Had I gone in earlier, I would not have ended up in the hospital. So, I am extremely grateful that these walk-in clinics are in existence.
The above Dr. Morris is working in a small town in Central Minnesota, pop. 20,000. The place sounds a lot like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon. Maybe he’s got time to get to know his patients. Heck, everyone in that town probably knows each other, anyway.
I don’t see much wrong with the walk-in clinics. If someone did a survey, I bet a good portion of the people who use them either have no health insurance and can’t afford to see a family doctor, or like the poster above, can’t get an appointment quicker than one week’s time.
I agree with another post above – doctors bemoan the fact that they don’t have time to talk to patients, mainly because they feel they don’t get paid to do that by insurers. On the other hand, they bemoan the fact that some patients will seek primary care elsewhere, in a setting where there isn’t going to be any discussion beyond treating the acute problem that the patient has.
I’ve rarely felt that a doctor I’ve seen wants to forge something resembling a ‘doctor-patient’ relationship. Mainly they want to treat the health problem that is in front of them. Once that’s taken care of in some fashion, they’re done.
so let me get this straight…. somebody should have the choice of where to get their healthcare?
Do they get to pick any random person to do theri surgery? Why not, if they always have the right to choose?
Do I have the personal choice of filing a lawsuit on my own, or do I have to hire a lawyer to do it for me? Where’s my personal choice in that?
Why is it that I have to hire an engineer to build a project? Shouldnt I have the personal choice to do it myself if I want?
If personal choice really trumps everything, then why doesnt that apply across the board? Why is it being selectively applied to just healthcare?
“so let me get this straight…. somebody should have the choice of where to get their healthcare?”
Yes.
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