This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
Rounds NEWS FROM AMERICA’S BEST MEDICAL SOCIETY


Physicians Foundation survey gauges physician dissatisfaction


Physicians are working fewer hours, seeing fewer patients, and limiting access to their practices in light of significant changes to the medical practice environment, according to a comprehensive new survey of practicing physicians by The Physicians Foundation. Among the key findings of one of the largest U.S. physician surveys are:


• More than 60 percent of physicians would retire today if they had the means. • Physicians see 16.6 percent fewer patients per day than they did in 2008, a de- cline that could lead to millions of fewer patients seen per year.


• More than 52 percent limit Medicare patients’ access to their practices or plan to do so.


• More than 26 percent closed their practices to Medicaid patients. • Physicians spend more than 22 percent of their time on nonclinical paperwork, resulting in a loss of some 165,000 full-time equivalent physicians.


The survey also found that over the next one to three years, more than 50 percent


of physicians will cut back on patients seen, work part-time, switch to concierge medicine, retire, or take other steps likely to reduce patient access. To read the sur- vey, log on to www.physiciansfoundation.org. Texas physicians’ responses to some of the key survey questions are somewhat more pessimistic than those of their colleagues across the country.


• Forty-five percent of Texas doctors described their feelings about the current state of the medical profession as somewhat negative, compared with 44.8 percent of physicians nationally.


• Sixty-seven percent of Texans said they would retire if they could, compared with 61 percent nationally.


• Seventy-two percent of Texas physicians said the Patient Protection and Afford- able Care Act makes them less positive about the future of health care in America, compared with 59.3 percent nationally.


• Thirty percent of Texas physicians plan to place new or additional limits on ac- cepting Medicaid patients, compared with 22.2 percent nationally. The Texas and national numbers for limiting acceptance of new Medicare patients are similar.


• Forty-three percent of Texas physicians rated their professional morale as some- what negative, compared with 41 percent nationally


• Fifty-three percent mostly agree that the medical profession is declining, com- pared with 41.6 percent nationally.


• Sixty-one percent of Texas physicians said they would choose medicine as a profession again, compared with 66 percent nationally.


Log on to www.texmed.org/PFsurvey


to read all of the Texas responses. Louis J. Goodman, PhD, Texas Medi-


cal Association’s executive vice president and chief executive officer, is the presi- dent of The Physicians Foundation. He said the survey data “clearly show that Texas physicians are much less positive about the Affordable Care Act and its impact on our health care system.” He also noted that significantly more Tex- as physicians — 60.4 percent — are in traditional practices than their national counterparts (48.5 percent). Dr. Goodman says the survey data demonstrate that TMA, The Physicians Foundation, and all levels of organized medicine must work together to help physicians cope with the changes in health care and the stress on physicians those changes produce. He added that the foundation’s Board


of Directors will share the survey results with political leaders and policymakers. “It is clear that the introduction of


nearly 30 million new patients into the U.S. health care system through health care reform, added to the already grow- ing physician shortage, will have pro- found implications for patient access to medical care,” saidWalker Ray, MD, vice president of the foundation and chair of its Research Committee. “The rate of private practice physicians leaving the medical field, as well as changes in prac- tice patterns that reduce the number of hours spent seeing and treating patients,


November 2012 TEXAS MEDICINE 7


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76