A modest proposal to fix the primary care shortage

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Talk is cheap

I am in the medical field. I have been hearing for many MANY years now how we will solve the primary care shortage by paying primary care docs more and specialists less, then a big fight ensues. And IMHO the stupidity of that proposal misses the obvious: If you have adequate primary care coverage your need for specialists and testing goes down. Therefore you don't have to PAY specialists less, they will simply earn less because there should be less work for them to do.

The bottom line, MD's in school today have been hearing the fantasy plan "We will pay primary care more" since they were children. And what has happened in those years, primary care docs work harder for less, year after year. You know you can only sling BS so many times before people just stop listening. You want more primary care docs? It's really simple, PAY THEM MORE! Loan forgiveness. Big wupp. Med student have to commit to a specialty by the end of their third year, you think they are going to "bet the farm" literally on some obscure loan forgiveness program that may or may not still exist 5 years down the road? They are going to choose this, loan forgiveness, over the virtual certainty of a better lifestyle and pay of specialty work such that even if you managed to slash the specialty pay by 50% would still blow primary care out of the water? Pay them more. Do it, and make it stick for a few years so today's med students realize you are not just blowing more hot air.

Posted by: oncall   Posted on: 08/20/09 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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