The physician-patient relationship: "An endangered species"

Benjamin Brewer writes about primary care today:

The doctor-patient relationship started to go downhill when patients stopped paying their own office bills for routine care and third-party insurance and Medicare became the driving forces. That was before my time.

Now primary-care doctors are pressured to churn patients through the office, to the detriment of relationship-building and possibly the health of their patients. At the same time, patients may have to switch doctors because of changes in their insurance.

(via The WSJ Health Blog)

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Tagged as: Medicare, patient, primary care