Value of primary care

Dr. Rob comments on the recent preventive medicine piece in the NY Times. To summarize, asserting that screening tests save money is a myth.

The real value of primary care physicians, is that we can prevent unnecessary testing :

For example: if you go to the neurosurgeon with sciatic nerve pain that has gone on for 2 weeks and is excruciatingly painful, what do you think the chance that the doctor will order an MRI scan? Fairly high. Why? Because they are used to seeing a population of people with much more severe disease. This is because these people usually come to the PCP first. When I see someone with these symptoms, I give them a prednisone pack, pain medications, and a handout on sciatica. 90% of these people get better. The remaining 10% I send to physical therapy and, if the symptoms are not responding or are getting worse, order an MRI scan. Only those people who have failed conservative therapy end up seeing the neurosurgeon.

Of course, patients need to be convinced that much of the tests that are ordered may be unnecessary. More articles like the NY Times piece needs to be publicized to hammer home the point.