Often, PCPs in major academic medical centers accept patients only as favors to other doctors, or through connections. Don’t know anyone? You’re out of luck:
Callers to Massachusetts General Hospital’s physician referral line, for example, are told that all, or almost all, of the hospital’s 178 primary care physicians are not accepting more patients. All 42 internists at Boston Medical Center have had full lists since four months ago, and 108 of Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s 120 primary care doctors have closed their practices to new patients.Determined patients, however, are getting in to see some of the city’s best doctors through informal channels, from e-mailing doctors personally to asking family members and acquaintances to use their connections.
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- How the primary care shortage affects rural Idaho
- Op-ed: Shortage of primary care threatens health care system
- Let’s focus on the primary care shortage
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{ 4 comments }
Even the resident primary care clinics can have a long waiting list, but they usually don’t reject people.
I agree with Michael Rack
This coming shortage is how we can start fighting back against declining reimbursement. Physicians can drop lower paying plans and use other means such as getting paid to take call or having the hospital pay their malpractice for hospital priviledges and start to reverse what the 90s did to the profession.
I work in the ER in the above system. We have a dedicated staff in the ER who’s job it is to find indigent patients Primary Care docs so they don’t get all their primary care in the ER. Their job is really easy now. We call them, they come to see the patient, and tell the patient “we have no primary care appointments..”
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