What administrative burdens serve as an impediment to physicians practicing primary care?
While physicians in all specialties face unnecessary and costly administrative hassles, the burden on primary care physicians is particularly excessive, detracting from the time available for patient care. Primary care physicians’ role in coordinating care and making needed referrals to specialists typically involves frequent interaction with managed care organizations and other third-party payers to obtain required approvals, services, and payment, resulting in paperwork and overhead expenses almost twice as great as those of other physicians. These physicians see more patients than other physicians and treat a higher proportion of Medicare patients. A typical primary care physician must coordinate care for Medicare patients with 229 other physicians working in 117 different offices, yet receives no compensation for these care coordination services. As a result, the average primary care physician spends only 55% of his or her workday on face-to-face patient care. The constant barrage
