Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Coyne who wrote (164187)	7/24/2001 10:18:56 PM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 769670

Doctors' Dissatisfaction with the Job on the Rise By Steven Reinberg NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The results of two surveys of primary care physicians, conducted 10 years apart, suggest that the level of dissatisfaction with the practice of medicine has markedly risen. "I think that the reality of medical practice has changed over the last 10 years and the disparity between expectations and reality has driven this downward movement in satisfaction," Dr. Dana Gelb Safran, from the New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health. Safran and colleagues evaluated the results of two surveys of primary care physicians: the Medical Outcomes Study, conducted between 1986 and 1990 in Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles, included 583 physicians; and the Study of Primary Care Performance in Massachusetts, conducted between 1996 and 1999, included 992 physicians. The team's findings are published in the July issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. Over the period of the two surveys, the investigators found a sharp decline in multiple aspects of physician satisfaction with their professional life. "Many of the changes in medical practice over the past decade, including managed care and large medical groups that contract with health plans, have caught physicians who went into practice decades ago off guard," Safran said. Physicians showed the most dissatisfaction with their professional autonomy, amount of leisure time available and with the time available to spend with individual patients. In addition, physician satisfaction with their total earnings also sharply declined. "In 1986 about 75% of the physicians said that they were satisfied or very satisfied with their total earnings, and in 1997 that number dropped to 55%," Safran noted. Furthermore, physicians in open-model practices where they accept patients from many health plans were less satisfied compared with physicians who worked in closed-model practices, where they worked with patients covered by a single insurance provider. For example, Safran noted that there were only a handful of physicians in closed-model practices who reported that they had payment for care denied in the past year, whereas nearly half of the physicians who worked in an open-model practice reported payment problems. In addition, she said, 75% of the physicians who worked with one health plan said that they would recommend that plan to family members and friends, whereas only 40% of physicians in an open-model practice said that they would recommend a plan in their practice. These feelings of professional dissatisfaction, Safran said, have resulted in higher rates of older physicians taking early retirement. Safran added that "physicians who have trained more recently are less surprised by what medicine looks like today, whereas physicians who have been in practice longer find the pressures of productivity and competitiveness an unwelcome surprise, which they regard as questioning their professional judgment and their technical expertness." Perhaps, Safran said, physicians who trained decades ago will never get used to medicine today, while physicians who are training now may just accept it. SOURCE: Journal of General Internal Medicine 2001;16:451-459.