Crowded Waiting Rooms & The Rise of Direct Primary Care
“The percentage of U.S. physicians employed by hospitals, health systems or corporate entities grew from 62.2 percent in January 2019 to 73.9 percent as of January 2022.”
This means only 25% of physicians remain independent. Many of them are either interested or have embraced Direct Primary Care (DPC) in order to better serve their patients and escape the slavery of corporate ownership.
With a looming doctor shortage in this country, the more independents embrace Direct Primary Care the quicker the shortage becomes. That’s because a DPC doctor can economically limit his panel to 600 – 1,000 patients while fee-for-service physicians must service a much larger panel of 2,000 – 4,000 patients in order to make a decent living.
As more doctors limit their patient load via Direct Primary Care, where is the capacity to absorb the left overs?
There will be a point in time where more patients will seek DPC membership as their only means to satisfy their immediate health care needs rather than wait weeks and months to make an appointment.
