Primary-care Physicians’ Priorities are Misaligned with Reality
Only one of five surveyed physicians cites reducing cost of care as a priority when that is every payer's first priority.
HealthLeaders Media recently conducted a survey among primary-care physicians asking about their top three goals for practice redesign over the next three years.
An anemic three of five respondents cited improving care coordination and collaboration as a goal, a troubling one out of three cited improving appropriate utilization of services as a goal, and a deeply disturbing one of five cited reducing cost of care as a goal.
In other words, 80 percent of the primary-care physicians surveyed are not going to bother with the key element needed to generate their future revenue (reducing cost of care) and, with the exception of better coordination, only one-third are even going to bother going through the motions.
Setting aside the inexplicable lack of instinct for self-preservation, the attitude reflected by the survey participants selfishly robs the healthcare system of desperately needed resources by perpetuating already gargantuan waste.
The media, healthcare systems, physicians and providers say the right words and support the right concepts outwardly, but, peeling under the surface, surveys like these routinely indicate that the will to live up to them may not be there.
How profoundly disappointing.
