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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – When did a trip to the family doctor become more like a visit to the DMV and less like popping in to see an old friend? You wait, read bad magazines, talk to someone who doesn’t know your name, and usually leave sicker than when you arrived.
Traditional primary care has changed. And there is one big reason: supply and demand. There are roughly 400,000 primary care doctors working today in the United States – a number that’s plummeting each year. By 2020, we’ll be 40,000 doctors shy of what we need to operate efficiently, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. And new health reform legislation will only further exacerbate that shortage, as another 32 million Americans will be eligible for new government subsidized plans over the next few years.
It means there are far fewer family docs for far more customers (yes, population is still growing). And with waiting to schedule and actually see the doctor taking more and more time, Americans are being forced to look for other options. Here are top trending alternatives that we expect to pop in 2011.
Drive-Thru Clinics
Lump together retail clinics (see: Wal-Mart, Target and CVS) and walk-in urgent care chains (see: MD Now and Patient First). While some researchers purport that retail medical outlets only complement traditional primary care, Fierce Healthcare studies show that only 25 percent of those who patronize these locations have a PCP (primary care physician.) And an estimated 16 to 27 percent are uninsured. Just think, the next time you’re doing your Saturday errands, you can buy paper towels, dog food and get a strep test all in one place. Heck, you can probably use a coupon for each, too.
Concierge Doctors
If you’re thinking celebrity physicians or TV’s “Royal Pains,” focus a little bit closer on your mailman, neighbor and workplace cube-mate. Concierge medicine certainly appeals to the upper crust, but has tweaked its model to become as familiar to the middle-class as a T.G.I. Fridays cocktail menu and Honda Civic. There are now more than 5,000 concierge physicians in the United States, charging on average $1,500 t0 $2,000 for an annual membership fee on top of insurance co-pays . You pay for access and time – same-day appointments, email and cell phone privileges and longer visits – and docs are usually limited to several hundred patients to support the model. MDVIP, a Florida-based concierge medicine chain, is the largest single provider with more than 350 physicians spread across the country.
Nurse Practitioners
Remember when the nurse was the warm-up act for your annual physical? Nurse practitioners will be headlining healthcare 2.0. The reasons are common sense: they’re more plentiful, require less training and run cheaper. For example, Medicare pays nurse practitioners 85% of what it pays a doctor. The cost savings has several states looking to increase the functions and procedures nurse practitioners may oversee. But not everyone is happy. The term “physician extender,” as nurse practitioners are dubbed by some, is far from flattery. In fact, concierge practices leverage the traditional doctor-patient their model upholds as a competitive advantage.
Virtual Docs
It’s one thing to access your medical records with your mouse cursor and schedule a flu shot online, but it’s another to virtually visit one-on-one with your doc while he’s blowing off steam at the 19th hole. Sure, no one gets gussied up to see the doc. But imagine being able to get diagnosed in your robe and bunny slippers via webcam is appealing. The future of 24/7 WiFi house calls is now, and even the recently enacted healthcare legislation has promoted wider proliferation of the high tech, low-personal-touch approach.
Holistic Medicine
The term means lots of thing to lots of people. Also called “alternative medicine” or “complementary medicine” by some, we’ll define holistic medicine as unconventional techniques not widely embraced by the mainstream. Acupuncture, herbalism and massage are examples of holistic medicine, as are practices shying away from pharmaceuticals and invasive operations. The discipline also looks to incorporate many dimensions of wellness, including physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health. In other words, if your buddy’s First Aid kit has a bandage, a huka and an Enya CD, he probably practices holistic medicine. Don’t judge.
Jet-Set & Suture
Medical tourism is booming. It’s no secret that you can travel to Costa Rica for much cheaper and riskier procedures than down the road at Memorial Regional Hospital. It’s also no secret that serious due diligence and research is important to ensure you don’t get ensnared in a “60 Minutes” black market surgery sting in some godforsaken banana republic. According to Deloitte Consulting, the number of Americans traveling for medical care is closing in on 800,000. The most popular destinations include South America, Southeast Asia and even New Zealand.
Emergency Room
When the line for the doctor is too long, where can people turn for honest medical care? The E.R.! Patients are showing up more frequently with routine ailments because they feel they have nowhere else to turn, especially in poor, urban areas. In a case study of Massachusetts, E.R. visit ticked up 10 percent between 2004 and 2008. Considering the current trending of primary care accessibility, expect even longer waits at your neighborhood E.R.
27 Specialists
Primary care physicians have long been considered the coach or manager of an individual’s wellness plan. But with the increasing scarcity of PCPs and growing niche focus of specialist physicians, you’re guaranteed to be seeing these new friends much more than the old family doctor. There is an overriding reason for this pattern: pay. According to medical recruitment firm Merritt Hawkins, family physicians make on average $173,000 per year. Stack that roll of change against radiologists ($391,000) and cardiologists ($419,000). That explains not just the sheer number of medical students choosing to become specialists but the increasing number of specialties doctors have to choose from. Heck, do you even know what a maxillofacial surgeon does?!
D.I.Y. Care
Did you know that cayenne pepper can stop bleeding? Or that garlic oil can cure ear infections? It’s true. Heck, Duct tape can be found more frequently in the family toolbox and medicine cabinet. Self-diagnosis (thanks WebMD) and self-surgery is on the rise. While we don’t recommend stitching up your own wounds or whittling your own heart stents, when you have zero insurance and mounting medical debt, you do what you’ve got to do. Hopefully, that includes hitting up the E.R. and not turning your den into a homemade MASH unit.
Nothing
It’s harder to sit and watch your gradual decomposition these days with the renewed focus on preventive care, medical dramas and information age’s proliferation of armchair doctors. After all, proactive medical screenings and procedures are now for the most part covered in the new healthcare laws. But a sedentary lifestyle combined with a high-risk family history and clinical depression can sure make it easy to ignore those heart palpitations. Get up, take a walk, check your blood pressure and eat an apple. That’s the least you can do…literally.
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