Is The Family Practice Doctor Being Replaced? Article

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Is The Family Practice Doctor Being Replaced?

The family practice doctor is being steadily replaced by a new breed of specialist known as the hospitalist, the fastest growing of the medical specialties; a sort of hybrid of a physician and an administrator.

Author: A Aaronson

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According to a recent article in the New York Times, the family practice doctor is being steadily replaced by a new breed of specialist known as the hospitalist. A hospitalist is among the fastest growing of the medical specialties, and is a sort of hybrid of a physician and an administrator. Because of increasing demands, these specialists are often taking over the role of patient care for those who are in the hospital for an emergency of one kind or another. Rather than depend on the overburdened family doctor to make the rounds, the hospitalist sees the patients and attends to their needs.

Hospitalists are responsible for the patient from the time they come in to the time they leave. For that reason, they are getting much of the credit when it comes to shortening hospital stays—something that is important to everyone from the insurance companies to the patient themselves. Some statistics show that these specialists could be cutting hospital time as much as 30 percent, while cutting costs as much as 20 percent. And there is no doubt that their numbers have grown immensely. In the 1990s, there were only around 800 hospitalists practicing their craft in healthcare. Today, there are more than 30,000.

With a new wave of health care legislation ready to take effect in 2014, these hospitalists could play an increasingly large role in the future of American health care. The new laws will penalize hospitals for patients who are quickly readmitted, as well as for medical errors and operating systems that are deemed inefficient. It is the readmissions that are the most costly for the government and those that pay taxes, and these days readmissions account for 1 in 5 patients. With a hospitalist entirely responsible for a patient’s stay, these readmissions are less likely to occur as patients don’t get jostled about to staff physician after staff physician, depending on the day and the hour.

Of course, not everyone is happy with the transition from family practice doctor to the hospitalist. Some patients are reticent to accept a new physician, particularly when they have been admitted to the hospital and want more than anything to see a familiar face. Also, there have been several instances of error where the hospitalist has failed to contact the patient’s regular physician and keep them informed. Nonetheless, it’s easy to see the writing on the wall and with new legislation ready to take effect, it seems that the transition to the hospitalist will continue.

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