Physicians And Other Providers: Changing Roles
Physicians and Other Health Providers Want to See Changes
Physicians and other providers want to be more than bureaucratic gatekeepers; they want to triage patients based on health needs rather than on ability to pay. A rational, accessible system of health care for everyone, which uses health providers for care needs that match their skill level will allow physicians and other providers to focus on the practice of medicine rather than on their current demands of running a productive business.
We are all reluctant to have government interfere with the practice of medicine. Some physicians fear that a new universal health insurance system will be low-touch, high-tech, reimbursing more for procedures and less for primary care. Others just fear change.
The irony of the myriad of insurance companies and health plans we have now is that they create more increased bureaucracy, not less.
Physicians have been forced into conflicting roles while trying to maintain the patient-provider relationship - attempting to be advocates for their patients, to navigate the sea of private and public health insurance programs (many of which do not provide the same level of service in terms of reimbursement), to maintain their own level of competence through continuing education, to function as small-to-medium business managers, to maintain payrolls, to keep the lights on and, somewhere in all that chaos, to practice their true calling: the practice of medicine.
The simplification and elimination of unnecessary paperwork and phone calls by the physician (or his/her staff), would allow the clinician to go back to doing what he or she spent so many years in school learning to do: to practice medicine.
Practitioners want to triage patients based on their health needs, not on their ability to pay, which is our current system of rationing. A well-designed health care system will allow physicians to practice medicine, not just focus on running a ‘business.’
Physicians can be change makers and leaders - In a new system, physicians can stop being bureaucratic gatekeepers to America’s largest social good, and become gate-openers instead. Physicians can join efforts to transform an old system into a new model that meets the needs of the 21st century physician and their patients.
