Will Medicare listen to its own advisory committee?
Health care winds up costing more when there’s lots of specialty care, but outcomes aren’t necessarily better. Having more primary-care docs, on the other hand, does tend to improve outcomes, a briefing document prepared for the meeting pointed out. Yet the payment system in this country tends to favor specialists, which is part of the reason fewer young docs are going into primary care.
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the only reason the specialists (ie. RVU committee) are crying for primary care now is that they’re really starting to see the lack of referral base, which is affecting their OWN pockets.
This will probably be solved, in their eyes, by legitimizing referrals from mid-level primary care “providers” eventually, and is why specialists love them, while internists/FPs despise them.
inane commentary by surgery resident over there.
made me laugh