Patient Beware of the New Primary Care Workforce
Once again a most important area of primary care is being ignored. The primary care workforce has moved from the most experienced workforce to the least experienced - without so much as a warning. The focus for primary care has been elsewhere other than significant changes in the workforce in areas such as consumer focus, convenience, quality, metrics, or lower costs. But there has not been much about changes in the primary care workforce itself. No, this is not about the movement from physicians to non-physicians, although this change is a big factor in the changing of primary care experience. All of the primary care workforce is impacted - MD DO NP and PA. Fewer enter and even fewer remain. Because they depart and take their primary care experience with them, the remaining workforce is more and more likely to be inexperienced. Not even researchers are asking many of the important questions with regard to primary care. How is the primary care workforce changing and what