16: The Problem with Primary Care w/ Stephen Schimpff

Once upon a time, primary care physicians handled all but the most perplexing specialized cases.

Those were the days in which a doctor wasn’t running from room to room for 12-minute (or less) visits. They had the time to actively listen to patient concerns and the familiarity with the patient history to handle the cases without referring to a specialist.

It’s hard to find that type of relationship today due to the way that healthcare has changed.

The burden of rising overhead costs and the hassle of dealing with multiple insurance companies have contributed to inadequate primary care visits and physician burnout.

In this episode, Dr. Stephen C. Schimpff, author of Fixing the Primary Care Crisis: Reclaiming the patient-physician relationship and returning the healthcare decisions to you and your doctor, discusses the problem with primary care that doctors face today.