Primary care is a vital practice in medicine which ensures that the elderly and the terminally ill patients receive quality care. However, the practice has faced several challenges in the recent past, especially in British Columbia. The paper will analyze a case study of how traditional family practice in British Columbia has been affected in the last years.
Diagnosis of the Problem
According to Dr. Shannon Zachary, the major problem facing traditional family practice is that few medical practitioners are willing to practice as family physicians. This means that as the practicing family physicians exit active service through retirement, they do not get replacements. The reason why most family medicine graduates are not willing to join the practice is due to the low income for family medicine practitioners. The system has been neglected, and the professional services offered by these practitioners devalued.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
All the family doctors in British Colombia are compensated under the Medicare programs. This means they receive flat-rate compensation with all other medical practitioners despite the extra hours that they spend in their service. This has made family medicine an unfavorable option for most medical graduates as the value of their services is not fully appreciated. A review of the Medicare program in British Colombia should be prioritized as a solution to most of the problems facing primary care programs.
Possible Solutions to the Problems
There are several possible solutions to the issues affecting primary care in British Colombia. First, the Medicare program should be re-evaluated to allow for higher compensation rates to the family medicine practitioners. The nature of services that the family medicine practitioners offer to the patients demands more of their time. They have a critical role in taking care of the elderly and the chronically ill patients which make it essential to review the compensation of their services. The practitioners spend almost twice the number of hours every day in service delivery but earn the same amount as all other medical practitioners.
Secondly, the billing system for the services rendered should be adjusted. The laws do not allow for extra billing for services given to the patients. Most family physicians provide additional services to the patients, but the law forbids them from billing the extra services. This discourages most graduate physicians from getting into the traditional family practice. The rules should, therefore, be adjusted to allow for additional billing which would allow the family physicians to earn from the extra service hours.
The Recommended Solution
The best solution to address the issue would be to re-evaluate the compensation plan for family physicians. This is because the root cause of all the problems facing the traditional family practice is the low rewards given to the medical practitioners. The review of the Medicare programs and the billing laws would allow the family physicians to receive considerable compensation for the services that they render to the patients. This would motivate the family physicians to improve their performance which would boost quality healthcare provision to the elderly and the chronically ill. Also, the increased income for the family physicians would promote the career as a viable option to the medical students which would increase the number of practicing family physicians. This would have a ripple effect on the overall performance of the health sector in British Colombia.
The Action Plan
The changes in the Medicare programs can only be effected through the legislature. Abolishing of the billing laws that do not allow for extra billing and evaluation of the publicly funded Medicare programs would be addressed. The funding of the Medicare programs should be increased to allow the flexibility of the budget which would facilitate better compensation.
The adjustments on the billing laws and the review of the Medicare programs should be immediate to allow for the implementation of the changes.
I will mobilize lobby groups to present the interests of the family physicians to the legislature which will initiate the change process. The lobby groups will also oversee the implementation of the changes to ensure the family physicians interests are addressed.
