Jimmie,

If only I could believe your optimistic viewpoint. Practices around me are still dropping like flies. I have not seen anything in my practice to indicate Physicians as primary care will be getting a reprieve. Did your reimbursements go up this year? Mine didn't. Did your overhead not go up? Mine did. Did your taxes go down? Mine didn't. Are your patients more loyal even though you are not going to the hospital anymore? Mine aren't. Are your consultants keeping you in the loop more? Mine aren't. Are your patients stopping in at the drug store mini clinics rather than your office? Mine are. Do your MAs produce more doing ear irrigations than you do seeing a patient with diabetes? Mine do. Do you make more sticking your finger up someone's arse than performing and reading an EKG? I do.
No, I am pessimistic. Every month I find it harder and harder to sustain my practice. There is a lot of talk about Primary Care getting a boost but, honestly, I think the long-term plan is not to pay MDs to do it. I think we have cut off our noses to spite our faces. I said this 15 years ago....Mid-levels will take Primary Care away from us. JMO but hard to dispute.
Will AC survive? Will I survive? Hard to say. But if we do, it obviously will be in a different theater, in a different costume.

Leslie
Hospital Employed Physician Who Misses The Old AC

"It's a good thing for a doctor to have prematurely grey hair and itching piles. It makes him appear to know more than he does and gives him an expression of concern which the patient interprets as being on his behalf. "