An interesting article from Health Leaders Magazine Online poses the question: could specialists be retained to fill gaps in primary care? The article proposes that we could ease the burden of the primary care shortage by retraining specialists to fill gaps in primary care. They argue that reforms targeting the primary care pipeline will take several years to take effect, thus there would be a quick turnaround with specialists since many already have a foundation in primary care. Here's an excerpt:
Joe Paduda argues that it would be far "easier, faster, and cheaper" to retrain specialists than to increase primary care training from the ground up. Specialists already have the medical background and could be easily trained to practice primary care with a specialist tilt. Cardiologists, for instance, could take a more active role in follow-up care and overall coordination before and after a patient undergoes a major heart procedure.
However, as the article also points out, taking on more preventative services and care coordination is only worthwhile for specialists if the change were to increase their profits, which in my opinion, completely defeats the purpose. The end goal we're working toward is to increase the availability of primary care services for Americans and increase health quality outcomes and value-- objectives that have historically been linked to primary care not speciality care.
Do you think an initiative to retrain specialists in primary care would lead to increased access to much needed primary care services and still lead to higher quality and value outcomes?
