A few weeks ago, I wrote about a study that revealed that 35-60% of lab test orders never get filled by patients. Today, I read another new study that reported that every year, millions of referrals are made by primary care physicians in the U.S. for patients needing consultations with specialists and that between a third and half of these referral loops are never closed.
The glaring and fundamental lack of communication between doctors and patients needed to close lab and referral loops is just another factor degrading and epitomizing our US primary care system.
This failure to close loops is just another reflection on just how poorly designed and financed the US health care system really is. The more affluent get access when and how they want. The bottom half practically suffer in silence, as those in power are deaf to their plight, allowing the underserved to experience the worse of consequences.
What's the purpose of an entrenched process that seems to break down more than half the time? How can that be allowed to continue? It seems that both patients nor providers are helpless to effect change. How do you address a problem that few appreciate the importance of making sure a medical problem is fully resolved?
Or maybe you don't fix it; maybe you start from scratch or reinvent it?
To make matters worse, our system pays virtually nothing for primary prevention. Even early detection is not incentivized. At the moment, healthcare is not even a top political issue. There doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that change will come before lack of access to a caring and competent primary care provider becomes a national crisis.
Maybe it's time to reimagine what medical practice could look like if properly conceived. Yes, its complicated, but from my perch, the current system is not sustainable even if the powers to be think otherwise. I'm not speaking about fixing all of healthcare. I don't have enough years left to climb that mountain. My concern is about primary care where more than 500 million visits are paid a year and 100 million people already don't have access.
That's why I founded SOAP Health and why I'll keep trying to fix a broken primary care system that took my brother until I'm dead or done.
The World's First AI Powered Primary Care Physician is coming in September 2024. Let's make quality primary care accessible and affordable for all!
#primarycare #PCP #primarycarephysician #primarycarepractice #familymedicine #pediatrics #gynecology #internalmedicine #digitalhealth
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2moBummed I couldn't make it! I'll be there next year for sure!