How to Reduce Primary Care Doctors’ Workloads While Improving Care

Not long ago, many services such as tax accounting were delivered episodically and in-person, as most health care still is today. Periodically, a client and accountant would meet, review financial materials and status and, at the end of the encounter, make an appointment for the next meeting. Increasingly, in-person accountant visits have been replaced by phone or web meetings and do-it-yourself software like TurboTax. There is still a need for accountants and face-to-face meetings, but typically accountants now require such visits for only the more complicated cases that can’t be managed with software or a call.

Health care has proved resistant to a similar transition, although everyone would benefit. While some aspects of care clearly require doctor and patient to be in the same place at the same time, many demonstrably don’t. Nonetheless, even those parts of care that could be freed from the doctor’s office remain tied to it, with schedules optimized for doctors’ productivity rather than what’s best for the patient.