Is Ann Arbor experiencing a shortage of physicians?

[netmouse]

So, I am slowly getting around to picking a primary care physician for my HMO. I'm looking for a new place partly because it seems to be getting harder and harder to get in to see my regular doctor at the old place... I tend to get shunted, on the phone or in person, to a nurse practitioner. Now, maybe nurse practitioners are just as experienced and trained as doctors and I'm thinking about this wrong, but I miss when I got to see my doctor more easily when I was sick, a few years ago.

So I called a new office yesterday which my chiropractor directed me to, and the doctors they had there who were accepting new patients were scheduling into either April or July for appointments for new patients. July! But I could get in earlier if my health insurance would let me see a nurse practitioner instead...

Is the health care industry restructuring, or what?

Comments

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

"Is the health care industry restructuring, or what?"

In a word, yes. More than that, the insurance industry is getting ready for the onslaught on the horizon, because the only thing all three presidential candidates can agree on is that the US insurance/health care industry is broken. And if you think things are hard to figure out now, just wait.

I like our doctor's office, but it's admittedly out near our house, and part of the U of M health system, so maybe not on your HMO.