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Your looking at it wrong. A doctor's appointment schedule is crazy busy, with "LONG" appointments being under 20min per patient. Imagine a scenario where a doc

Your looking at it wrong. A doctor's appointment schedule is crazy busy, with "LONG" appointments being under 20min per patient. Imagine a scenario where a doctor is able to spend time with the patient/their medical history etc. I spend a lot of time going to doctors appointments these days, and a large number of the doctors that I see, now have an assistant/transcriptionist in the room to manage the EMR/charting app, because that enables them to focus on the patient.

x220 7y ago
Would the doctors take fewer appointments per day and make less money? Or do doctors get paid by the hour?
- benibela 7y ago
  In Germany they are paid a fixed amount for each patient in a quarter by public insurance. So they want to minimize the time they spend on each and prefer to give a second appointment months later
  - x220 7y ago
    Guess I'm not moving to Germany then!
godelski 7y ago
That's definitely one way to look at it. And I hope that's what happens. But is it really wrong to speculate that that isn't going to happen? I think it would be naive to not speculate how we would handle such a situation. Contingency plans are important.
iudqnolq 7y ago
I've never understood this argument. Right now we have decided implicitly as a society we're fine with the current level of care. If we can provide that same level of care cheaper, what makes you think health care providers will decide to pass those savings onto patients in the form of more care for the same price?
- Engineering-MD 7y ago
  I would disagree with this statement. Every year, expectations rise, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet these expectations. Furthermore, I think expectations are tempered by the knowledge that staff are over worked and time is limited. It is infeasible to practice medicine the way it us taught in medical school in practice due to time constraints. And like everything else, the work tends to fit the time available.
  - iudqnolq 7y ago
    I hope very much you're right, and that as medicine gets cheaper we get more of it.

x220 7y ago

Would the doctors take fewer appointments per day and make less money? Or do doctors get paid by the hour?

benibela 7y ago
In Germany they are paid a fixed amount for each patient in a quarter by public insurance. So they want to minimize the time they spend on each and prefer to give a second appointment months later
- x220 7y ago
  Guess I'm not moving to Germany then!

godelski 7y ago

That's definitely one way to look at it. And I hope that's what happens. But is it really wrong to speculate that that isn't going to happen? I think it would be naive to not speculate how we would handle such a situation. Contingency plans are important.

iudqnolq 7y ago

I've never understood this argument. Right now we have decided implicitly as a society we're fine with the current level of care. If we can provide that same level of care cheaper, what makes you think health care providers will decide to pass those savings onto patients in the form of more care for the same price?

Engineering-MD 7y ago
I would disagree with this statement. Every year, expectations rise, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet these expectations. Furthermore, I think expectations are tempered by the knowledge that staff are over worked and time is limited. It is infeasible to practice medicine the way it us taught in medical school in practice due to time constraints. And like everything else, the work tends to fit the time available.
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  I hope very much you're right, and that as medicine gets cheaper we get more of it.