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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

The system is already overloaded by an aging population and a shortage of practitioners. There is no capacity to schedule extra office visits for the sake of making patients feel that they are validated and being taken seriously. That may seem cruel, but that is our reality. It's only going to get worse as the demographic situation continues to deteriorate.

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There's absolutely a shortage, but what about recent innovations or acceptance of things like e-visits, 24/7 clinics, and even AI-assistance for clerical work taking more load off of practitioners?

For example, I'm looking at my HCP's app right now and can schedule a call with my doctors as early as next week for an e-visit. For an in-person visit, it's closer to a month. But they have absolutely been taking my extra office visits due to my condition.

Telehealth visits and expanded clinic hours make obtaining certain types of care more convenient for patients. They do nothing to address practitioner productivity and workload. It's still one practitioner working directly with one patient.

AI might eventually reduce charting workload slightly. A few vendors have launched new products in that space but they haven't had much impact yet. In the ideal case they might allow for an average doctor to squeeze in a couple more short encounters per day.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7540911/ Suggests both pros and cons depending on if the facility is at capacity already or not.

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