Compensation Is Key to Fixing Primary Care Shortage

(By Michelle Andrews for KFF Health News)

Money talks.

The United States faces a serious shortage of primary care physicians for many reasons, but one, in particular, is inescapable: compensation.

Substantial disparities between what primary care physicians earn relative to specialists like orthopedists and cardiologists can weigh into medical students’ decisions about which field to choose. Plus, the system that Medicare and other health plans use to pay doctors generally places more value on doing procedures like replacing a knee or inserting a stent than on delivering the whole-person, long-term health care management that primary care physicians provide. Continue reading here…

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation.

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