Starting in January 2026, you’ll be able to use your Health Savings Account (HSA) to pay for a DPC membership—removing a long-standing barrier for individuals and businesses alike.
Starting in January 2026, you’ll be able to use your Health Savings Account (HSA) to pay for a DPC membership—removing a long-standing barrier for individuals and businesses alike.
Primary care serves as the cornerstone for building a strong healthcare system that ensures positive health outcomes and health equity. The function of primary care includes managing new health complaints that pose no immediate threat to life, managing long-term conditions and supporting the patient in deciding when referral to hospital-based services is necessary. A key aim is to keep people well, by providing a consistent point of care over the longer term, tailoring and co-ordinating care for those with multiple health care needs and supporting the patient in self-education and self-management.
In a world created by non-physician administrators where 10 minutes per patient, 30 patients per day, little ancillary support and the constant threat of litigation is mixed with declining reimbursements and high debt loads, it comes as little surprise that primary care physician burnout is among the highest of any occupation.
As Donald Trump begins to transition into his presidency, the healthcare community has begun to make predictions about the impact of Trump’s policies on independent physicians. But what can direct primary care providers expect to see the next four years?
Imagine if the only place you could bring your child when he develops flu-like symptoms, an ear infection, a nagging cough, a sore throat or needs a checkup or a refill for his asthma inhaler, was to a hospital emergency room. You would be paying an exorbitant amount for basic care. But, that is what's happening today. With dropping incomes coupled with difficulties in juggling patients, soaring bills and policies from insurance companies that encourage rushed office visits all mean that more primary care doctors are retiring or leaving medicine altogether. In addition, medical malpractice lawsuits, now are common, adding more layers of paper work, expense and stress to virtually every physician’s day.
Unless immediate and comprehensive reforms are implemented by the government, primary care—the backbone of the U.S. health care system—will collapse and the repercussions will be worse than the 2008 housing crisis. Luckily, there’s still time. Primary care isn't dead yet but it is on life-support.
Here's why there are more primary care physicians leaving the medical field than entering.
Primary care physicians are downbeat about the future of the medical profession.
Right now today, doctors are too busy and patients are unable to schedule timely appointments. As a result, they are bypassing primary care, since a same day appointment is but a memory of the past, and joining the stampede to the local hospital emergency room. And now, emergency departments are inundated, crippled, and some are even crushed. The gatekeeper function of primary care is defunct and it’s ruining the healthcare system.
When we’re young, it’s up to our parents to take care of us. If there’s a tummy ache or a sniffle, we turn to them for the answers. But then we grow up and it’s not always so clear who has the answers. Along the way, we turn to doctors to answer the more difficult and complicated questions. In the age of the internet, websites and forums can seem like doctors on demand. The problem with turning to the web for information is that it’s just not a replacement for a doctor.
A recent survey uncovered the truth about what doctors think about primary care and healthcare today. The survey found that 49% of primary care physicians say they "often or always" experience feelings of burnout and more than half of the physicians have considered leaving medical field altogether.
Insurance is the root cause of the many problems and inconveniences patients face in primary health care today. From the overcrowded doctor schedules, packed waiting rooms, and flustered doctors to the overall degeneration of the patient-doctor relationship, insurance is the reason why primary care is failing and why you are not given the quality of care you deserve.
