Joseph Martin, in a Boston Globe op-ed:
This march into more lucrative medical specialties is severely crimping the ranks of needed primary care doctors at the very moment the demand for primary care is on the rise . . .. . . Also needed to be addressed is the disparity in reimbursement where doing procedures pays well but thinking deeply about a patient’s problems has financial limitations. Reimbursements should be based on quality of care, not quantity.
Bottom line: the new requirements in medical care require new thinking in how to deliver that care.
And new thinking is what is needed in an election year featuring a major debate on healthcare. This debate needs to move beyond the issue of access and coverage to how the delivery system can be restructured to provide the best healthcare possible at an affordable cost.
Bravo.
