2010 Vision
How the Baby Boomers Will Change the Way You Run Your Practice
By Adam Katz-Stone The generation that changed the way Americans think about rock-n-roll, free love, and the Volkswagen Beetle will soon turn its energies in new directions. Just as popular culture received a major overhaul at the hands of the youthful baby boomers, medical care in this country is poised to get a thorough once-over in the coming decade, as members of the post-war generation reach their golden years.
The first boomers will turn 65 in 2010, and experts estimate some 78 million people, born between 1945 and 1960, will reach retirement age in the next 20 years. This means there will be significantly more senior citizens in this country than ever before — and thanks to advances in medical care, those seniors will eventually boost the average age considerably. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of people over age 85 will double, to 7 million, between 1994 and 2020.
Inevitably, this glut of gray-haired individuals will arrive at physicians' offices with the usual varieties of age-related ailments: diabetes, arthritis, hypertension, and chronic heart disease. But they will bring something else, too. Call it consumer savvy. Call it high expectations. Call it "attitude," if you will. With money, smarts, and high-speed Internet connections, a few tens of millions of geriatric baby boomers are about to take the healthcare profession on a wild, magic carpet ride.
But where is it going? And what will it all mean to physicians and the way they practice medicine? Physicians Practice Digest talked to numerous analysts, experts, academicians, and other such soothsayers to put together this speculative view of what healthcare in 2010 may look like. Continued...
