> (speaking from US): The reality is we need more doctors. A lot more.
[Doctors only spend around 18% of their time with patients in the U.S.](<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40500897/" rel="nofollow">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40500897/) The rest is spent on administration. I respectfully contend that the bigger issue is not the number of doctors per patient (though I admit that it could be a contributing factors), but rather that successive bureaucracy and compliance and laws and insurance requirements and policies have resulted in a system which forces doctors away from patients and towards ass covering. Remove the bureaucracy and you instantly have 5x as many doctors, effectively. Add more doctors to the machine and the machine will only find more creative ways to waste their time and talents.
Yes, that's true to an extent. Some administrative tasks can really only be done by the attending physician. Ultimately they're the ones taking legal accountability. But other tasks can be automated or shifted to cheaper employees or not done at all. The problem is that many health system managers and administrators treat physician time as an unlimited free resource and impose all sorts of extra burdens on them. This is one of the factors driving physicians to burn out and leave the profession, further exacerbating the shortage.
estearum · · focus · HN ↗
There's no solution other than training a lot, lot, lot, lot more doctors.
Their salaries need to be lower, training needs to be cheaper and faster, and we need a lot more of them.
Gareth321 · · focus · HN ↗
[Doctors only spend around 18% of their time with patients in the U.S.](<a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40500897/" rel="nofollow">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40500897/) The rest is spent on administration. I respectfully contend that the bigger issue is not the number of doctors per patient (though I admit that it could be a contributing factors), but rather that successive bureaucracy and compliance and laws and insurance requirements and policies have resulted in a system which forces doctors away from patients and towards ass covering. Remove the bureaucracy and you instantly have 5x as many doctors, effectively. Add more doctors to the machine and the machine will only find more creative ways to waste their time and talents.
nradov · · focus · HN ↗