U.S. low in primary care physician visits

Posted by Sean Keating on June 19th, 2007. Filed under: medical profession, british medical journal, medical profession, physician_time, physician_visits, primary_care, ucsf, university_of_california_san_francisco.

We’re [not] number one! We’re [far from] number one!

A study published in the online edition of the British Medical Journal showed patient-physician time in the US is about half the average of New Zealand and one-third of Australia.

“The substantially shorter time per capita in the US was the biggest difference we saw in our study. Such a severe shortfall impacts preventive care and management of chronic conditions in the US and could explain why the US does not achieve health outcomes that correspond to its higher level of investment in health care,” said study lead author Andrew Bindman, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco.

Other interesting findings:

The range of problems managed in primary care is narrower in the US than in the other two countries, a finding that the researchers expected because of the greater proportion of specialists in the US healthcare system.
The average duration of a visit was about 10 percent longer in the US (16.5 minutes) in comparison to New Zealand (15 minutes) and Australia (14.9 minutes), but Americans had fewer visits, making the US annual per capita average the lowest of the three countries.

Comparison study shows U.S. low in primary care physician visits [via UCSF News Office]

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From Medical Economics magazine, more on medical profession ...

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