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bsder

General practitioners (who you need for primary care doctors) are unfortunately in extreme undersupply in the US.

This is a combination of things:

1) Being a specialist is much more lucrative

2) The AMA has been resisting calls to increase the pipeline of doctors

3) The absolutely shitty treatment of medical interns.

4) Many of them left due to Covid (the primary care physician is on the front line dealing with the Covidiots)

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Is a doctor really necessary for GP type stuff though? I've found physicians assistants to be just as effective and more readily available.

Yes and no. The buck needs to stop with somebody and that responsibility is on the GP. So, you need at least ONE visit to the main GP before you can access their assistants.

I agree that most of what GPs do is be a "router" than sends your packet to various specialists. But somebody actually has to do it.

NPs can practice independently in ~1/2 of states, they aren't relegated to being 'assistants':

https://www.aanp.org/advocacy/state/state-practice-environme...

Of course they will escalate some care to other providers.

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