5 Future predictions for US healthcare

March 24, 2023

Daniel Paull MD shares his 5 future predictions for US healthcare.

Article, Healthcare

From/about the article: Prediction #2 for healthcare's future, of my 5: Increased insurance burden overhead requirements combined with decreasing reimbursements will push volume to the brink, Doesn't matter how good the doc is, it's hard to do a good job with a short visit.

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Here are the 5 future predictions for US healthcare, according to regular contributor to our platform, Daniel Paull, MD:

1. Care will get more expensive. This has always been the trend. The healthcare industry is unlike a lot of other industries in that as technologies age, they tend to only get more expensive. Take X-rays, for example, that have been around for over 100 years. You would think that somehow buying an x-ray machine wouldn’t be that expensive but it still definitely is.

2. Visits will get shorter which equates to worse care. Increased insurance burden overhead requirements combined with decreasing reimbursements will push volume to the brink, Doesn’t matter how good the doc is, it’s hard to do a good job with a short visit. The average face-time for a visit is 7 minutes which = one problem per visit. But what if you have two problems? Or what if the problems are interrelated. Overall this leads to missed problems, increased referrals, and overall worse care.

3. Physician burnout will increase significantly. Mergers and acquisitions and private equity will keep piling up, and small practices will disappear. The corporatization of medicine will increasingly commoditize physicians. The resultant loss of autonomy will increase burnout.

“Prediction #3: Mergers and acquisitions and private equity will keep piling up, and small practices will disappear. The corporatization of medicine will increasingly commoditize physicians.”

4. Physicians will continue to complain while staying in a system they hate. No explanation necessary.

5. Direct care will grow substantially. Physicians looking for a way out and a means to practice better medicine will find it here. Direct specialty care will also become more of an option as those involved pioneer it

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect those of SoMeDocs)

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Daniel Paull, MD

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