According to a recent Health Affairs study, researchers estimated that over half of the 354 million doctor visits that are made for acute health reasons — such as colds, stomach aches, coughs, and fevers — aren"t made with patients" primary physicians. And that over 28 percent of visits for acute medical reasons are made at hospital emergency rooms, mainly after office hours and on weekends.
Experts question whether patients" access to primary health care can possibly be maintained or improved when health care reform kicks in as the system is already inefficient and will be facing an increase of about 32 million new patients soon.
Over 50 percent of acute-care doctor visits made by people without health insurance took place in emergency rooms.
This means hospitals are faced with heavy financial burdens and workloads as basic health care is being supplied in an expensive setting when it doesn"t have to be. It appears that many patients view going to the emergency room for treatment as a good option and sometimes the only option as they can"t always get help from their family doctors.
The new federal legislation hopes to boost primary health care by higher reimbursement rates for providers along with expanding local health centers and encouraging more students to enter the medical field. However, researchers said if primary health care physicians can"t meet patients demands then those people will look elsewhere for treatment which only adds to health care costs.