Doctor Wait Times Soar 30%

Patients are waiting an average of 24 days to schedule an appointment with a doctor in 15 major U.S. cities. That’s ridiculous.  They say this is due to a shortage of physicians but is it really?  If the doctor is spending half of his or her time on bogus metrics, ridiculous EMR work and documentation then shouldn’t we try to eliminate this first?   Instead we let this happen:

Insurers are pushing more of a team-based approach to healthcare to keep a lid on healthcare costs as the population ages, with the federal government shifting more Medicare dollars away from fee-for-service payment to value-based care models.

Teams don’t fix the problem.  They just add overhead. And why would we ever let the insurers tell us to do anything?